I appreciate watching you grapple with these issues from the left. I did much the same, and so did many, as I was coming around (no, I'm not saying you are becoming, or have to become "a conservative", or end up where I did).
I hope you will continue to think about this and get to the point where you decide to stop using false terms like "trans girls" "trans women" and "cis people." You're still in it, Dave, the dishonesty. This is cult talk, and everyone who uses it knows deep down that it is cult talk. It's the inversion of the real. There is no such thing as any of this.
I know. The public response will be, "There's no reason for me to be disrespectful by calling them men." That's not really true. It's fear, not "fear of being disrespectful." Fear of being socially punished for not going along with it. Misplaced fear and guilt ("that guy I know who says he's trans will think I hate him, so I'm going to say 'trans woman' because deep down I'm worried that I'll be a morally bad person if I don't say it").
Every time people use these terms as if they were real, they are helping continue the lunatic cult of transgender ideology.
There are no "transgender" people. That's not real. Never has been real. Never will be. There are people who are mentally deluded, people who are traumatized, people who are narcissistic, and many variations. But none of these people are "trans."
Whether you’ll accept this as a defense or not, I don’t know, but my use of these terms shouldn’t signal my acquiescence to their supposed truth. When I say ‘trans girl,’ I’m not accepting the premise that some children are “born into the wrong body.” I’m saying it because we all know what it means, and, in my judgement, it is the least loaded and most concise way to describe a natal boy who identifies as a girl (that longer description took seven whole-ass words!)
The best analogy I can use is this, and it’s not perfect: I strongly disapprove of the term “pro life” because it does not adequately describe many of the people who oppose abortion rights. The second Bush administration was chock full of bloodthirsty warmongers, all of whom identified as “pro life.” Nonsense, I say.
Still, I would use the term when trying to write neutrally about abortion or its implications. Especially when failing to would distract from whatever broader point I might be trying to make. I generally think that ‘anti-choice’ is a more accurate descriptor for people who oppose abortion rights, but it’s heavily left-coded and strongly associated with feminism. Which, fair enough, if I’m writing something that aims to either please the left or antagonize the right. If I’m not trying for that though, using it serves only to turn off readers who might otherwise be amenable to my argument.
I realize that on trans issues, the trans activists introduced all these terms to the lexicon. So to their critics, using them at all feels like awarding them a victory. I see that, I just don’t really know what to do about it. I meant what I said in the piece: I have no interest in suiting up for this fight. I’d rather be a war correspondent here than a combatant.
As an apolitical example, I completely HATE it that everyone uses and understands the word ‘peruse’ to mean browse, when it actually means scrutinize. Ultimately though, I can either die on that hill, while also being poorly understood, or I can just go with it. Generally, I opt to go with it.
I have a piece coming out soon about race that touches on the Word Wars in a way that I think, and hope, you might find more agreeable.
I understand what you are saying, and I see the point in using the terms in writing, but I don't agree that everyone knows what they mean, especially those new to the debate. I've heard the terms used incorrectly in conversations for years. (My tipping point was in 2016, when Dolezal was scorned and Jenner was celebrated, relatively early.) Until another term enters the lexicon--and it will, this woo shall pass--I will say boy, man or male-bodied; girl, woman or female-bodied. No confusion.
Nauseous used to mean "inspiring nausea", but it has become a synonym for "nauseated". That's the hill I don't die on...but...
There are definitely people who are transgender, and you definitely are being an asshole to them to insult them in this way. Obviously, you do not have any "fear of being disrespectful"--you enjoy it. Nor do you have any "fear of being punished." I am strenuously disagreeing with you, but if you would call my disagreement punishment then your skin is much thinner than you no doubt tell yourself it is.
Dave is not being dishonest to use terms that are, well, useful and descriptive.
I'd suggest that your assumption that you understand transgenderness better than the people who experience it, or who are close to trans people, and with your unassailable understanding are able to dismiss these quite normal people as freaks, "lunatics," and "narcissists," are part of why people on my (pro-trans) side of the debate feel so reticent to think in public about these difficult issues as Dave does here. We realize that we are playing defense and trying to protect a minority that has few allies. And it FEELS like concession of any point--such as that trans women have an on-average physical advantage over cis-women in many sports--will be seized upon by you and others who agree with you to do horrific, cruel things to these perfectly good people we know, many of whom are family members.
Just the way you talk about it is really revealing. There is no empathy in your words whatsoever, your hostility is barely concealed, and I don't know exactly what you'd like to see visited upon this marginalized population (uh-oh, there I go again using woke language), but it's pretty frightening to imagine. And if YOU yourself wouldn't enjoy watching forced de-transitions, renditions to "wellness camps," or worse, it's pretty clear we couldn't count on you to side against those who would.
I'd suggest backing off the incendiary anti-trans language on YOUR part might calm down some of the harshest language from the far left, and might open up more space for moderate liberals to speak more honestly about this issue.
As long as it feels like any concession I make is ammunition for a hateful anti-trans crowd to do cruel and inhuman things, it's really hard to speak about this. And again--you might not do cruel things yourself, but you're squarely on the side of those who would.
Nope. There is no such thing as an ontological state called "transgender."
Nope, I'm not abusing anyone. You have a deep emotional investment in something that's not true, and so you need to make me a villain. You're getting emotionally hysterical.
You don't feel reticent to talk about it at all. You're hyperventilating all over me in public. This is known as the "narcissistic reversal."
I disagree. I think your words are hostile. And, you confidently assume much that you do not know, and I think that's very dangerous.
Pushing back against your words is not narcissism, and it's not hyperventilating. Your words were strong, my words were strong back at you. You should be able to handle that.
I don't' "need to make you a villain." I don't even know that you are one, but I would invite you to take seriously the worry, that moderate liberals like me have, that trans people are in real danger from people like you, or at least from people you wouldn't side against. If we are wrong, explain why we shouldn't worry so much. Insulting us and calling us narcissists doesn't help.
The "have a good day" is so typical, too. It's insulting. You definitely do not wish any such thing. I assume you don't care one whit, so to insultingly say otherwise is really silly.
Respectfully, you erroneously believe that all people should accept that there is such thing as “gender”; this is unhelpful and illiberal.
Are there people who suffer from what is best described as “dysphoria” or profound unhappiness in one’s sexed body? Yes, there are.
That doesn’t mean people can indeed change sex, and it certainly doesn’t mean that any person should be compelled to affirm another’s belief that they have.
I’ve never heard anyone claim a person can choose their SEX. Gender is different from sex in this regard.
And I don’t “erroneously believe” that “all people should accept” that there is a thing called gender. I fully agree that no one should be “compelled to affirm” anything. Thought policing is completely unacceptable.
I support your right to refuse to accept the concept of gender and even to be as unkind to trans people as you wish, short of physically harming them. You have the right to misgender them to their face, dead-name them, tell them they’re wrong about their gender, and think what you will about them. I want you to have that right. There should never be thought policing.
Speech policing too is generally unacceptable unless it rises to the level of incitement to violence or overt harassment. For example, you absolutely have the right to say to a trans person, “I don’t believe in transness and I think you’re wrong in thinking you’re female. In fact, I think you’re lying,” but you DON’T have the right to yell at them close to their face and attempt to incite them to lose control and fight you, even though that’s “speech.”
But you can refuse to accept trans people, and you can tell them that you think they’re wrong, crazy, lying, dishonorable or even evil. And likewise, I have the right to think you’re being a jerk to be so unaccepting.
Any dictionary published before publishers became woke defines "gender" as nothing more than a synonym for "sex". The present-day complication of its definition isn't English, it's just a very recent woke social construct. There are no "trans people". There are only delusional, mentally unhealthy individuals pretending to be what they most certainly are not. Yes, I am unaccepting. Very unaccepting. If you think I even remotely care that you think I'm a jerk, just add that delusion to your list of fantasies. And stay the hell out of women's sports and locker rooms.
Just gotta point out that at the beginning of a sentence you said you aren't making Josh a villain, and by the end of that sentence you said that trans people are in real danger from him.
Tried to be careful to say something like “or people he would not side against.” I do not hold that he would personally wish or perpetrate harm on a trans person. If I suggested that, then I should have been clearer, because I obviously don’t know him like that.
Also, I do think trans people are in danger, but not everyone who would remain silent in the face of their persecution is a “villain.” Many Germans were silent as Jews were exterminated, but not every ordinary German was a full-blown villain.
Feel like my words are being a little twisted by some in this thread. I’m trying to be careful not to make sinister personal accusations. If I have done so, it was not my intent.
No, this is correct. Just replace the word "transgender" with "Atlantean". No difference. It's a self-defined term and an unverifiable concept. There is no way to tell the difference between a man pretending to be a woman and a man pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman.
I’m using their self-report. In the definition I’m using, if a person feels that they are a gender that doesn’t correspond to their biological sex, they are transgender. Millions of people report feeling this way, so either they are all lying—that is, they don’t actually feel this sense, but falsely say they do—or there are people who are transgender.
I guess by my definition, the “claim” that transgender people exist is quite mundane and doesn’t seem to require empirical study.
I suppose maybe one could define transgenderness in such a way as to require more evidence of its “genuine existence” than the representations of trans people that they really feel as they do? But I don’t know what that definition would entail.
I mean, do gay people exist? If you would not accept a person’s representation that they are genuinely sexually attracted to people of their own gender, I suppose you could argue that “there’s no evidence gayness is even a thing.” Indeed I know a person who denies there is even a condition called “gay.” He argues everyone is heterosexual, but some people claim to be gay for various (nefarious, obviously) purposes, or falsely believe that they are “gay,” a condition that doesn’t even exist.
This seems absurd to me. I don’t know how to empirically differentiate “a man thinking he is attracted to men” from “a man being attracted to men,” such that only the latter category constitutes “really being gay.”
Same with transness. How would you demonstrate a bio-male person who thinks they feel female doesn’t really feel that way?
I think someone like Josh would agree that there are "millions of people who report feeling that way".... but so what? The question is what that means.
I think the analogy to homosexuality fails. Sexual attraction is inherently a subjective experience. The *feeling* is the *thing*. If a man says "I'm attracted to men", well, we all know what it means to be sexually attracted.... and who would know better than they do who they are attracted to?
Transness is not the same thing at all. What does it *mean* for a man to "think they feel like a woman"?
The feeling is not the same as the thing.
Are they saying that they *are* a woman? Well, they're not. (XY chromosomes, a penis, etc)
Are they saying that "feeling like a woman" is something different from being a woman? OK, but what does "feeling like a woman" mean?
The rebuttal I've heard is "well you know what it's like to 'feel like a man' don't you?" And my honest answer is "no I don't". I don't know what it means to "feel like a man". It's not even a meaningful thing to say. I *am* a man. My feelings have nothing to do with it.
Yes, some people have convinced themselves that they have "gendered souls" that are mismatched to their bodies. Sometimes they do this for political reasons. "Wouldn't it be nice if I could make a political statement by repudiating my masculinity?" Again, I respect everyone's human rights, including the right to be misguided, but I think the whole thing is rather sad frankly.
It’s not a matter of him being disrespectful at all. It is not disrespectful to say they have a mental illness when they have a mental illness. Unless you think facts are disrespectful somehow. You’re not denying a person’s humanity when you say, these people are mentally ill. Because they are. And that’s a reason to have some empathy for them.
So when you say there are definitely people who are transgender, you are also, really just saying they are mentally ill as well. I say “really” because I think what you’re saying is that they see, think of or feel themselves to actually BE, that is, EXIST as the opposite sex of their established biology. They can see themselves, think of themselves and feel themselves to be women (in the case of Trans women), but they aren’t. Because they are men who happen to be suffering some form of a mental illness.
Dave is right. Indeed, spot on. They are boys/men with mental health problems. They are not girls. They are not women. And I’d never insult girls or women by trying to say they are. What they need is not nodders (nodding heads saying, “Yes they are”) but the services of mental health professionals. Psychotherapy if you will.
Suggesting a person has a mental illness is not necessarily disrespectful, though it can be, depending on the context. Using a word like “lunatic” is, however, and reveals the spirit in which the suggestion of mental illness is employed.
Also the arrogation to oneself of the authority to say with certainty that “trans people don’t exist” is pretty dismissive. This in a time when conservatives have literally used the word “eradicate” when talking about trans people. In this environment, confident dismissals are dangerous.
The post did not say, “I honestly think there is mental illness involved here, and with proper help many of these people will no longer see themselves as trans.” I still think that’s probably empirically incorrect, but a post like that would not have brought my pushback. A conservative-driven movement to open-mindedly investigate transness, help those who might mistakenly confuse their feelings with being transgender, while allowing that evidence may support that others may authentically be trans, would not be objectionable to me—but that’s not at all what’s on offer here. What we have is “they’re lunatics, they’re narcissists, they’re lying, they don’t exist.” You plucked the one arguably unobjectionable characterization—suffering from mental illness—and used it to suggest my pushback was unfair.
I honestly don't even know what it would mean to "investigate transness". What is there to investigate? Presumably, in this investigation, we'd be setting out to find "evidence that would support that someone may authentically be trans", but what does "being authentically trans" even *mean*? An equivalent question: What would "evidence" for this supposed condition look like?
As soon as you start asking these questions it becomes apparent that there are no answers and the whole edifice collapses. In the words of Richard Feynman, it's "not even wrong". I don't think the exasperated hostility you are encountering is surprising, although the undiplomatic tone of some of these comments is unhelpful.
Well “allowing that evidence may support that others may authentically be trans” is I think a misconception. If you’re saying they are “authentically “ women, it’s like saying a dog can be an authentic cat.
So the mental illness part I don’t really have a problem saying that. Mental health conditions are ubiquitous. As a society we need to be more blunt in recognizing and dealing with it. I wonder how many “trans women” have friends, family, neighbors, school officials willing to engage honestly with them to say they need mental health therapy? And offering help to that end?Isn’t that a better course than empty affirmations of personal solidarity and the disastrous “gender affirming care”?
The problem here is definitional. No one who is biologically male claims they can become a woman by YOUR definition. Your definition would require that they be genotypically XX, have gestation organs instead of insemination organs, etc. absolutely no trans person I’ve ever known would claim that such a metamorphosis is possible. So we are talking past each other if you think any biological male thinks they can achieve that. (If anyone thought that, then they’re delusional, but almost zero trans people think that.)
They, and I, are using a different definition of “woman,”—a cultural one. I understand you may claim that such a definition is impermissible, but words mean what their speaker intends them to mean. You can say “I don’t recognize the definition you’re using, please use other terminology,” and I’ll do you that service, but when I say “woman,” in the context of THIS conversation, I mean “someone who feels they are culturally an adult female.” In other contexts, I might use your definition of woman: adult human biological female.
If you were to respond that it’s bizarre or somehow dishonest for me to switch between different definitions of woman, I would gladly give you a list of hundreds of words that have multiple definitions that you yourself use, in multiple ways, every day.
Everett, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and respond as if you’re arguing/debating in good faith.
What you continue to fail to understand is this:
Being female, and being a woman, isn’t a “cultural” experience, and MOST people are really sick and tired of any/all attempts to advocate that it is.
It is not.
Being female is a biological state of being.
A woman is a female who is legally recognized as an adult.
No male can “feel” female, because he isn’t.
Boys and men can WANT to be female, no one would deny that this feeling exists.
Again, what you are failing to grasp, is that people are increasingly fed up with any social or political movement that requires other people to affirm that simply because a person wants to be the other sex, they are then (in law / society) magically the other sex.
There is no “transition” of sex, and any member, of either sex, can perform ANY “gender” they wish to — no transition has or needs to occur.
If a person claims to:
1) Have a “gender identity”;
2) And feels it’s “wrong”;
3) Therefore needs to “change” or “transition” — Fine. Whatever.
But no one should be compelled to believe in any of those three things.
Because they’re fantastical.
Finally, please accept that many of us who reject “gender” are not conservatives.
Some are.
But not all. By a long shot.
No male will ever be female.
No man will ever be a woman.
Perform culture or societal stereotypes all day / any day.
You haven’t changed sex.
Most people do not believe in “gender”.
And whether you like it or not, the vast majority of people believe there are certain situations in this world that in deed call for the recognition of the reality of sex.
"They, and I, are using a different definition of “woman,”—a cultural one."
But what is this "cultural definition"? What is its content? Your list of the biological markers of masculinity is a concession that every definition needs some content.
What does it mean to "feel culturally that they are an adult female"? To be an "adult female, culturally speaking", does not give you extra powers to do anything that you couldn't do when you were an adult male. Want to be a nurse? Check. Sleep with men? Check. Drive a pink car? Check. Knock yourself out (with my blessing).
This desire to "be culturally an adult female" seems to simply boil down to a desire (if not a demand) to be *seen by others* as an adult female.
But... they're not!
Do you not see where the conflict is coming from? Most of us would be happy to live and let live, but their "transness" *requires* our affirmation and participation. The reason I see an adult female as a "cultural adult female" is that ... drumroll please... they are in fact an adult female! Not to mention the fact that there are genuine competing concerns (like fairness in sports, etc etc).
Instead of relaxing traditional gender roles (which I'm 100% fine with), we're just baking them in. You like playing with dolls? You must be a girl. No wonder gay men like Andrew Sullivan are incensed by all this.
It’s of no moment to me, really, that a biological male, thinks and says he’s a woman. Or even if he adds the gloss that he only means it “culturally.” Though even much cultural dynamics flow directly from biological characteristics. . However, it’s when that man insists that all people treat him as though he is a woman, use the pronouns he insists upon, insists that he be allowed to invade the privacy and spaces for biological girls and women that a dead end is reached. That cannot and need not be tolerated.
I appreciate your thoughtful responses here and in the following thread. (And your use of semi-colons; ha). I was a bit startled by some of the language used in response to Dave's article and I'd like to add to the conversation by providing some information about what research actually shows.
Being transgender is not a mental illness. It’s also not just a social trend or something people are talked into. Studies from neuroscience, psychology, and medicine show that transgender identity is a real and deeply rooted part of who someone is. It’s shaped by a mix of biology (like brain development and hormones) and life experience — not just one or the other. (Search this in ChatGPT, then look up the numerous peer-reviewed studies they cite).
Major health organizations, like the World Health Organization and the American Psychiatric Association, have made it clear: being transgender isn’t a disorder. What can cause distress is when a person’s body or social environment doesn’t match who they know themselves to be — that’s called gender dysphoria, and it’s the distress that is treated, not the identity.
It’s also important to remember: cultures around the world, for thousands of years, have recognized that not everyone fits neatly into "male" or "female" boxes. Being transgender isn’t new — only the language and social visibility have changed.
Bottom line: Being transgender is a natural part of human diversity, not a disease or a fad.
Thanks for that. I am not well-read in the scientific or social-science literature. It’s interesting to know that there’s neuroscience research on transness. I should familiarize myself with that, as I’m arguing here without benefit of that knowledge.
Nonetheless, I know what the trans-suspicious response will be: the research literature cannot be trusted because it is infected by pro-trans ideology, thus any papers casting transness as nonexistent, or gender-affirming care as harmful, or in anyway contradicting pro-trans claims, will struggle to find publication, and that researchers doing trans-related research that doesn’t support the advancement of trans wishes will be drummed out of the academy, hence the research you cite is biased and screened to ensure the result it supports.
And I do concede that scientists and social scientists, and certainly the clinical psychology/therapist community, almost certainly have a trans-supportive bias, so I cannot completely discount the possibility that the research literature might de-emphasize results that contradict pro-trans claims.
Thus, I have tried to stake out a position that doesn’t not require, say, that neuroscience “prove transness is real” by finding it in fMRI imaging, and so forth.
Even if transness were some kind of error on the part of the trans person (I’m not sure how a subjective self-concept can be erroneous, but for the sake of argument, let’s say it is), I don’t see its harm. And being in error does not equate to being in an evil cult. For example, I think a majority of Americans are in error in believing that a magical, immaterial entity named Yahweh controls activity on earth and punishes nonbelief in him via eternal fire. And I even support them in this belief by agreeing, as a democratic participant, to allow them to own property tax-free (churches) where they consistently affirm their commitment to this error. I could argue this is a sinister cult, but I don’t; rather, I think religion is part of human experience for some but not all people, and I just let people live their lives in the way that feels right to them.
My point is: I don’t think transness is an error or a delusion, but it wouldn’t change my view if I could be convinced it somehow is. People should get to have their errors and not be rejected.
Really appreciate how open and thoughtful your response is.
You're right — no research field is totally free from bias, but when multiple disciplines (neuroscience, psychology, endocrinology) find similar patterns independently, it strengthens confidence in the bigger picture.
But honestly, like you said, scientific proof isn’t the real heart of it — it’s about respecting people’s right to live in a way that feels true to them.
Thanks again for engaging in such a decent and open way.
That’s a fiction that some perv or mentally ill person dreamt up, and you choose to believe it. There is no evidence for it, because it’s not true to begin with. Just there are men who believe they have wolf or tiger blood in them. Or marrying an anime character is perfectly normal.
Your language—“perv”—reveals your agenda. And you’re not the only person in this thread for whom that’s the case. The nature of transness and the rise in trans-identifying youth may be worth discussion, but not with you.
Every time I start thinking, “wait, do conservatives have any reasonable points on transness?” and open my mind to discussion, this seems to happen: the mask falls briefly, with words like “freak,” “perv,” “narcissist,” and “lunatic,” and I see you for who you are. Thanks for the reveal, I guess.
Yes, you are! I did not mean to suggest that I think you care what I think of you. I wouldn’t think you’d be that thin-skinned. Glad to know you’re not.
The cruelty is to the ‘trans’ person in not speaking truthfully to them now and in the past. There is no such thing as a trans woman or a trans man. We all have to help them regain some mental health.
This has been a really educational experience for me, as a lot of people have attacked my view here. I have to say, I had misjudged the anti-transgender view. I thought most “anti-trans” views were driven by concern that young trans-identifying people would undergo medical procedures they’d regret later, or that their presence in women’s spaces would make cisgender women uncomfortable. Or perhaps that they’d bring unfairness into women’s sport. Those are understandable concerns.
But I was wrong. The thread running through many of the comments is, instead, a not-very-veiled hostility to trans people themselves. They are seen as a grave menace. They are perverts, sexual predators, narcissists, liars, lunatics, freaks, they are forwarding an ideology, they are authoritarians trying to force others to live on their terms.
I didn’t realize this level of hostility was driving anti-trans positions.
I don’t know what the people in this thread would or would not tolerate as far as persecuting trans people, but if trans people are the menace they’re portrayed to be, it’s disturbing to imagine what might be supported.
I know a few trans people. They’re absolutely nothing like the damning descriptions I am reading here. They are not menaces.
And I think they have every reason to be very afraid. I appreciate the education.
I worry a lot about this too. Particularly because it’s a structural problem that isn’t going to be easy to solve. Bigotry dies when confronted with familiarity. People scoff at “I have a black friend” defenses, but having friends in a targeted group makes you far less susceptible to generalized hostility toward them. The same is true for trans people. If you actually know them, they aren’t an abstraction, and you won’t be tempted to let TikTok weirdos define them. But trans people are so few in number, real human connection can’t compete with media narratives. It’s both very sad and very dangerous.
I my personal experience, I have not encountered trans people who I would describe using these terms, although I do know that some trans women in particular are driven by a sexual fetish - Andrea Long Chu and Jessica Yaniv would be prominent examples. I have, however, personally experienced the coercion used by some trans people and by their many allies to force others to unnaturally mold their language to be sensitive of their feelings, even when the trans person is not present. In my personal experience this is not something most trans people are interested in, but it is something some of them are interested in, and crucially, in my own experience the desire to coerce others seems to be independent of any dysphoria. The reality is, if you attempt to exert coercive control over others, you will be quietly hated by those others. It has made me quite angry to be forced to use wrongsex pronouns for a person who obviously has no issues with their sexed body, although I do not hold this against all trans people. It's sad because like I said, most trans people I know aren't into this, but the few who are and their progressive allies are driving a strong backlash in what I find a fully understandable way.
That said, I am not aware of any credible dangers to trans people at present. Not being allowed to play on the girl's team is not a form of danger, and neither is not being allowed to medically transition before 18. Most trans people who are murdered are prostitutes killed by their purchasers - trans people who aren't trapped in prostitution have a 'normal' murder rate.
Anecdotal datapoint for you - as far as I'm concerned "young trans-identifying people would [undergoing] medical procedures they’d regret later" is the only issue I'm concerned with. I find this so objectionable that I would, strategically, surrender on every other issue in the so-called "trans debate" in order to prevent this - or at least impose severe oversight of these procedures. Sports, bathrooms, pronouns, etc. - the TRAs can have their way on all of it.
The State of Minnesota (and other states) can now, by statute, remove a child from the custody of a parent that objects to medical/surgical intervention. Given the inconclusiveness of the science used to support medical/surgical intervention on minors, this state of affairs is an abomination.
This was, I think, the breaking point for a lot of casual observers. I’m not going to pretend to know how to care for a child with severe gender dysphoria. I don’t know enough. But it’s also going to be impossible for me to trust the “expertise” of people who are heinously wrong in all the other things they’re saying about kids - especially if they touch on subjects I do know about. If your justification for gender care for minors is that “KiDs kNoW tHeMsElVeS,” bye! You have now lost all credibility with me. I would sooner take astronomy advice from a flat-earther.
I invite you to reflect on the number of trans advocates who *do not* think those are understandable concerns, and that they reflect nothing but bigotry. If you think those are "understandable concerns", try advocating for those concerns and see how it goes.
"They are perverts, sexual predators, narcissists, liars, lunatics, freaks, they are forwarding an ideology, they are authoritarians trying to force others to live on their terms."
There's sometimes more than a grain of truth to these characterizations, is there not?
You were surprised? Did you not see the national advertisements Trump ran during the last election? It would be nice to believe that people form their opposition based on a fair evaluation of the subject. But fear of Bad Other has been dominating the playbook for thousands of years.
Totally get that. You are right. My real point is not to be a cynic but to think about the state of discourse in terms of this very powerful and ancient fear-based myth (Bad Other). To name it, paradoxically, allows me more compassion — I myself can resist the idea of a Bad Other when I imagine the fear beneath the hate. But to be charitable as you were is also to unravel the myth; you have refused to assume without evidence that your opponent is ill-intentioned.
That may be so, but I'm not sure what hinges on it. My view has always been that "trans people" (whether you think that's a thing or not), are *people*, and should have all the political and human rights of people. (which does not necessarily include being treated as their preferred gender in absolutely every context). Even if I think they are misguided in some important ways in how they are presenting themselves to the world, well, there are a lot of misguided people out there. As a liberal I have to make my peace with that, not to force others to see themselves as I see them.
Transgender is just a new label for an old issue: people who do not accept societally created sex roles.
I have helped transsexuals with gaining new ids and legally changing their names. So perhaps it is you, Mr Young who is the problem by tribalistically accepting the arguments that an ill defined group's views and language should be IMPOSED on others.
I have suggested trans people would like to be treated a certain way, and do treat them otherwise strikes me as unkind. But I have defended your right to treat them however you wish (verbally, obviously), while defending my own right to say I think you’re being a jerk to do so.
Show me where I e proposed a real imposition. I seriously think you are mischaracterizing my position.
But most people do treat trans people as they present. The insistence on language change is top down authoritarianism - especially attempts to control speech between third parties in which a trans person is not involved for example.
Trans people’s civil rights are protected under US law (see Bostick). They can marry as they please. Perspective on this issue has been lost. People are really angry at me for saying the bathroom and changing room issues were largely irrelevant when the issue was post operative transsexuals - and probably would be today.
Sports is another issue. Even Caitlin Jenner and Renee Richards agree “transwomen” don’t belong in women’s sport.
The vast majority understand that there is no such thing as “girldick” and that housing male self-id transwomen in women’s prisons is a bad idea on its face. And that is aside from the data that indicates such males are four times more likely than the average male inmate to be sex offenders.
Asking, even insisting, that people use pronouns they don’t want to…that’s “authoritarianism?” Wow, that seems like a wild exaggeration…unless you can show me where someone has proposed a law forcing ordinary citizens to do so. If that’s happened, I would oppose it.
Without the force of the state, people can insist on all kinds of things, and it’s not authoritarianism.
I need to push back a bit here. Social consensus can absolutely create the conditions of authoritarianism without force of the state. Even a rather mundane “cancellation” can lead to functional banishment. Starvation even, if it means you can’t work anymore. And none of that requires the threat of state violence. I think we gloss over this in the west, the US especially, because our legal protections are from state-enforced authoritarianism. But talk to someone who’s been targeted by a more organic dictatorship of thought/speech and they’ll assure you: it’s just as real.
There were indeed some “cancellations” that may have been unjust during peak “cancel culture.” And those cancellations were unjust.
But if we are going to equate onerous cultural expectations with state authoritarianism, I feel like we are stretching the definition of authoritarianism close to the point of uselessness. We all make concessions to cultural acceptability. Even liberals!
There’s a lot about culture that sucks, but that doesn’t equate to North Korea.
As an illustration, couldn’t any woman say, “you privileged men are ridiculous…we women have to be VERY careful what we do every day. For us, it’s always authoritarianism. It’s daily North Korea.” There’s a certain truth to that, but it also obliterates the usefulness of the term “authoritarian.” We need to be able to say “this sucks for people, but that doesn’t make it authoritarianism.”
No. I think Mill made a pretty good argument to the contrary. Moreover, both in the US and Europe government does mandate language - from pronouns to Gulf of America. Pronoun requirements get prescribed in regulations. Judges mandate women refer to male rapists as "she," its government working with the private sector. In STATE universities, failure to use the "right" pronouns can lead to discipline against even TENURED faculty. And lets not even discuss the harassment (including death threats) of faculty in the UK and US that is left largely unremedied.
At the risk of being rude I laughed out loud at “from the left.”
His substack feed:
Totally made up story about Mamdani based entirely on his supposition
You can’t blame the GOP for the results of their policies - that’s mean!
Anti-wokeness screed
Anti-feminist screed
Anti-Dem post
A defense of MAGA conservatives
Come on man.
He’s welcome to his opinions but let’s be honest about what they are: this is a guy who is nominally “on the left” because conservatives love to hear from leftists who only write about how the left is bad. These “heterodox” guys (there are so many of them!) are either conservatives working a smart angle, or they’re guys hopelessly addicted to metrics, adulation, etc, who have consciously or not realized that being a “leftist” who only bashes the left is way more lucrative than being an actual leftist.
This is a guy who puts out right-wing material for a right-wing audience, which is, at this point, an easy-to-recognize type of pundit.
Correct. There is no such thing as a trans person. Mentally ill and/or surgically disfigured but trans is not a category. Male and Female are the categories and one does not get to decide which. It’s in the DNA.
The thing is, the Democrats are not *only* the party of “trans rights”, they are *also and at the same time* the party of “women’s rights”. The problem is that these two constructs are in deep, apparently irreconcilable conflict over several policy areas, not just sports. (And on that, all I will say is that if the TRA’s weren’t such insanely zealous maximalists on every one of those issues, it would be really easy to come up with compromises that would probably easily be 80/20 positions with the public).
You know this is actually one of the issues that really pushed me away from the Democrats. Not sports specifically. For me it was actually all the crazy stuff going on with children. But suffice it to say that I’m actually very well read on these issues, including the sports stuff, as I’ve been following them closely for a decade or so.
Regarding that, the evidence is utterly incontrovertible that males have physical advantages over women that affect nearly all sports (bone density, lung capacity, cardiac capacity, muscle density, hand-eye coordination, spatial reasoning, height and weight, etc.). We can say “on average”, yes, but in sports the participants are not average. They are being selected for athletic ability. The higher up the chain you go (from, say, local rec league all the way up to professional sports) the more extreme the selection pressure gets such that if it’s something you’re watching on TV (other than local access), you can be sure that none of the people involved are merely average. And at the tail ends of the distribution, as in the Olympics, male advantages over females are way more dramatic than they are in the middle of the curve. Even in areas much closer to the mean it’s not that close. You mention soccer as being not a big deal, but did you know that the US Women’s National Team (one of the best women’s soccer teams in the world, by the way) has been defeated in exhibition matches by high school boys? Specifically they lost to a U-15 club squad (so not just any boys, but they still lost to a bunch of high school freshmen at the end of the day, and these of course were not just any adult women either, they were among the best of the best).
The problem for Democrats is that the “just desegregate everything” approach, while at least logically consistent and morally defensible from the standpoint of fairness, would effectively mean the end of women in sports. It would be the end of Title IX. You want to talk about 80/20 issues, I would guess that support for Title IX is somewhere in that vicinity. If you came out openly against it, you’d get slaughtered even worse than the Democrats already did, and mostly by your own majority female political base.
There is no shelter for the Democrats on this issue, no clever political maneuver that can reconcile these positions. They are trying to have their cake and eat it too, and they just can’t. It is functionally the definition of insane to purport to be an advocate for female safety and privacy rights (which are cornerstones of the feminist movement) while at the same being totally cool with moving convicted male sex offenders into women’s prisons just because they suddenly claim to be women (yes, this really happens, and yes female prisoners have been sexually assaulted as a result).
The Democratic approach to this issue has been to be quietly all-in on fulfilling the most maximal demands of the TRAs while at the same time gaslighting advocates of female rights (ie TERFs) into acquiescence. They believe they can get away with this because the trans population is small enough that most voters don’t personally end up on the wrong end of their policies, and a lot of the one who do are socially marginalized (like female prisoners) or sufficiently vulnerable to social coercion to keep quiet. Too bad they went and pissed off JK Rowling, who is neither of those things. And it just gets worse for them from there. The more attention normal people pay to these issues, the worse the Democrats look. As a matter of political survival, the TRAs have to be crushed. No, Democrats do not need to turn against trans rights entirely. They just need to come out on the 80 side of the handful of prominent 80/20 issues (ie employ common sense) and be willing to use that public support to completely marginalize and crush the most unreasonable of the activists. No males in women’s prisons or rape/violence shelters. No males in women’s sports. No drugs or surgery for minors. Voila, you’ve just largely detoxified the whole thing. It wouldn’t end the bathroom wars, but that’s an area where I don’t think there’s an 80/20 position, and so it can be a live political issue without killing the Democrats.
Gender surgery on minors is very rare and when it does happen, is under the supervision and guidance of parents and doctors.
Last year, the Biden Education department was drafting rules on transgender athletic participation that would have empowered state and local authorities to ban transgender athletes from participating in certain sports based on age, competition level, and educational objective, including safety. While
these rules were not made final, that they were in progress shows that the Democrats were not, in fact, completely beholden to extremists on transgender issues.
We are facing an uncertain economic situation created by idiotic tariffs, broad erosion of the rule of
law, and potential devastation of the social safety net under the current administration.
How does it make sense to embrace all of that over a minor cultural issue involving 0.1% of the population?
The current administration is trying to cancel millions of dollars in federal aid to K-12 students in Maine because literally 2 students are participating in female sports. How does this make sense?
"Unequivocally" troons directly affect me and my life by actively degenerating the society I live in, plus they're really gross to look at and often exude very dark and negative energy
I’m not your bro and you don’t know the first thing about me, internet stranger. You’re turning me into a straw man, presumably because you don’t have any actual arguments.
You’re straw manning me again. Since you don’t know me, you cannot say whom I know or do not know. You are making things up to try to disqualify me which is not an argument, it is ad hominem.
There are 42MM kids aged 10 to 18 in the US and a little over 1% of them identify as transgender in some way. The number of patients receiving gender affirming surgery is under 1200 per year, according to an article published in JAMA.
To whom you are attracted sexually is purely subjective and therefore cannot reasonably be contested by an outside observer.
Where you decide to live your life on a spectrum of superficial, stereotypical male to female attributes (and we all do) is also purely subjective and similarly cannot be questioned.
However, your biological sex reflects an objective reality which cannot be changed by your subjective personal view and futile attempts to do so can result in serious health impacts to you as well as harms to members of the sex you are impersonating (primarily women).
Others who are grounded in objective reality should never be forced to accept your subjective version of your actual biological sex.
Finally, it's past time for the LGB community to separate themselves from the trans activists who are trying to take away the rights of women to fairness in sports and to privacy and safety in their restrooms, locker rooms and prisons. They also advocate for the chemical and surgical mutilation of children many of whom would grow up gay.
Their actions are evil and the
understandable negative reaction to the harm they are causing is spilling over to innocent people who are just going about their business, marrying and leading their lives.
"To whom you are attracted sexually is purely subjective and therefore cannot reasonably be contested by an outside observer."
When I once voiced the heretical opinion that I'm not entirely convinced there is even such a thing as a "transgender person"*, I was surprised that an otherwise extremely intelligent and accomplished person (with a law degree, no less) responded "I suppose you don't think gay people exist either" as though it were a devastating counter argument. It really is a cult.
*To be clear, I think "transgender people" are *people* and are entitled to the full slate of human rights regardless of whether they think of themselves as a he, a she, or any other gender, and regardless of whether or not I see them as they see themselves.
The nice thing is that when my coworker (who is heterosexually married) tells me that she's "really bisexual," I don't have to make reference to her unfalsifiable bisexuality every time I refer to her with the potential punishment of losing my job if I do otherwise.
And personally I don't particularly need to know anything about anybody's sexual preferences, I just need to know what the name of their plus one is for the name cards.
I'm a lesbian and have worked at the same company for 3 years without ever mentioning it to my direct manager. It requires no accomodation in the workplace, and the only way it might impact my job at all would be that I could be taking the adoption/paternity parental leave and not the maternity birth leave someday.
With transition, people are often required to actively agree to/declare beliefs that none of them really hold, over and over, every single time they refer to a person.
Mostly excellent piece. Your policy proscription is dumb, but the analysis of the flaws in the arguments here is top-notch.
As a true centrist in the “god, both sides are awful” vein, I wish the dems could just shut up about some of these loser issues. Not even capitulate, just get out of their own way with them. I’m so sick of seeing them snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in order to play to the ultra-left wing Twitter crowd.
Haha sorry I can never tell when people are being serious around this issue anymore or are just trying to highlight the absurdity of it.
I’m admittedly hypersensitive because I’m the dad of two girls and I dread the world I’m raising them in where they might get clobbered playing sports by some guy in a dress.
Oh go fuck yourself. I have two teen daughters. They’ve played sports year-round for going on a decade. No girls anywhere have been clobbered by boys. You are a liar, and a disingenuous one to boot.
These are PLAYGAMES we are talking about. Grow up.
I love this response. It’s such a wonderful encapsulation of OP’s original point about how utterly toxic this debate is, right down to the faux tough guy profanity thrown in.
At some point, the pro-trans people became completely indistinguishable from Tintania McGrath style parody accounts.
Really? These cases don’t exist? This thing that there a simple google search that yields dozens of articles of boys participating in girls sports and hurting their opponents is just a figment of my imagination? (And a figment of the imagination of the 80% of Americans on my side of this issue?) I guess we’re at the “it never happens” point of the argument, which will then move to “it hardly ever happens, why do you care?” Before reaching “it happens and it’s a good thing!”
At bottom, I’m stuck at my original point— do you like Trump? This kind of dumb bullshit response is how you get more Trump. Attacking people who could be your political allies as “liars” and “disingenuous,” rather than expressing curiosity or empathy for view points and experiences that differ from your own. Telling a dad expressing mildly concern for his daughter’s safety that he’s not welcome in your club is how you end up pushing him into the other club. But, cool you can keep virtue signaling to people on the internet.
Would it be beyond possibility that these aggressive responses are the work of ‘bad actors’ intent on fanning the flames? To turn a niche issue into a politically wining cause that distracts from awful GOP performance? The thought occurs to me frequently when I see the supporters of trans women (always women) go from 0-60 in 2secs.
Grok says that "Jake Gless" is 98% likely to be a bot, so in this case, bad actors would certainly appear to be operating. In a broader sense, I think a lot of it is an outgrowth of the "woke" tendency to care more about personal prestige than about any outcome. Being harsh and aggressive is the thing you're supposed to perform, so they perform it. They don't really care about the issue, so it doesn't matter to them that it turns everyone off.
That’s obviously not a position with which everyone agrees, otherwise there would be no need for this discussion at all. I realize that you would prefer exactly that - no discussion - but it only takes one side to start an argument, and this one has most assuredly been started.
Well there is no such thing as "agreement" over biological sex. It's a simple fact, not an opinion, so there is no agreement to be had.
Sex cannot be changed and nobody has ever gone from male to female or vice versa. William Thomas is a male and he belongs in male sport. There is no way to agree your way out of that because a simple cheek swab test would prove it.
Women like me don't mind discussion. It's men who want to play women's sports who shut down debate and literally attack women in public, so I don't know who you think you're talking to. Go talk to the men who file lawsuits to get into women's prisons. I'm sure they'd be open to a discussion with you.
She should have never been given mutilative surgeries and testosterone as a way to deal with her intense self-hatred because "trans" does not exist. Strangely enough she kept her uterus (even after having her breasts removed) in case she wants kids because that's what real men do. If her "gender dysphoria" is so bad she can't tolerate having breasts, how can she tolerate having a female reproductive system and potentially pregnancy?
She's a female. She needs to stop pretending she's male and stop taking testosterone, and any sex-segregated activities means she's plays on female teams.
Also, after she tried the men's teams, she started coming in last during the meets when she would be first or second when she competed against other women. Isn't that odd?
I will never go back as long as they keep having these childish tantrums. I’m tired of them asserting that everyone else is some kind of stupid (or evil) if they don’t see it like they do. I won’t be blackmailed or bullied into submission on this.
“As stated above, the fiercest participants in this debate would mostly rather avoid the debate entirely, and just skip to the part where they win.”
Statements like this reveal that you are a newcomer to this topic and not very familiar with it. Women’s groups have been debating and fighting tooth and nail for about a decade, at times fighting simply for the right to debate without being shut down with threats of violence or other such hecklers veto. See for women Scotland, FairPlay for women, Women’s Liberation Front, Genspect and others. You not being aware of this activism does not make it nonexistent or mean gender critics are trying “skip to the part where they win.”
The “both sides are irrational” angle here is not accurate. It’s more like this: trans activists make a demand or claim, skeptics (often women) say “I have concerns with this demand I think we should discuss,” then TRAs say “I won’t debate my right to exist, there is no discussion to be had and I won’t permit a discussion to happen. This is war and you’re with us or against us.” Meanwhile the media mostly goes along with this and buries anyone critical of trans demands.
Eventually women’s rights activists said “ok, so you won’t tolerate a debate. You say this is war. Fine, we’ll settle this on the (legal and public opinion) battlefield ⚔️”
This is where you came in and see people fighting and say “wow both sides are so combative.”
There was one party in particular saying “this is not up for debate” and it was TRAs. Don’t both-sides this please.
That really wasn't the point I was trying to make. I am well aware that women's groups have been onto this for much longer than the general public, myself included. I wasn't trying to tone police anyone, or insist that folks just get along. I was pointing out - correctly, I think - that this debate isn't like debates over, say, immigration; where you've got die hards on both sides, plus a bunch of people staking out territory in the middle. Until about 5 minutes ago, this debate was *only* the two poles. No middle. No compromise. I'm not passing judgement on that, I'm just observing it, since it's rare in politics.
“Until about 5 minutes ago, this debate was *only* the two poles.” This is mostly true. Most people were paying no attention to the issue and only partisans really cared about it.
My point is that for feminists, you don’t see any moderates because they were forced into a radical position. Trying to stake out any position in the middle gets you absolutely trashed by trans activists. See Jesse Singhal for the canonical example of this, trying to car about a middle path and TRAs try to destroy him.
So while you’re right that there’s no middle, I think you’re missing the key point that there’s no middle because TRAs (primarily) wouldn’t allow a middle. Their “my way or the highway” approach forced people in the middle to either be silent or be prepared for total war.
I really don’t disagree with this. TERFs were not going around canceling people. Or telling people to kill themselves. Or telling people they should get raped. Or threatening to kill them. Or…
Anyone who believes that men who think they are women should be allowed to compete against biological women in most sports or that they belong in women's restrooms, locker rooms and prisons is either cognitively impaired or intellectually dishonest. Unfortunately most Democrats now fall into one of those two categories.
Excellent article. Very good writer! Can I submit for consideration you be brave enough to write about a related topic…the censorship and banishment within the party itself. You spent quite a lot of time qualifying your POV. Why should you have to?
If the Dems don’t start admitting the culture they created - cancel culture, self-censorship and banishing dissent - they are doomed to fail. No healthy organization or relationship has these things.
Thank you! I think I sort of have written about what you’re describing, though not quite in this context.
By far and away the most popular piece I’ve published on here was this one, which is all about cancel culture, and the leftist will to ruthlessly crush even mild dissent. Hope you enjoy!
I appreciate your willingness to engage on this issue. It’s not an issue that most people approach with much nuance.
You accurately attack the fundamental unfairness of the Left’s attempts to promote Trans issues by shaming others or by passing regulations (whether organizational, state, national, or international) that are widely unpopular.
I posit a few counterpoints.
I’ve coached a number of youth sports seasons and before puberty, there’s not much difference between girls and boys ability (vast differences between the best boys and worst boys and best girls and worst girls). Then once puberty happens boys gain strength, speed, size, and agility advantages. I don’t see any reason to prohibit trans athletes who medically/hormonally transition before puberty to participate according to their gender identity.
If trans athletes are not able to compete according to their gender identity, it forces them to be out to compete. That’s a large burden on a child or teenager. It would be de facto exclusionary for most trans athletes.
I think it’s completely fair to make rules about participation for players who have gone through male puberty including exclusion. And while we wait for studies of the impact of medical/hormonal transitioning on athletes, when in doubt be more restrictive.
You highlighted a number of arguments made by trans activists that are disingenuous. You could have easily highlighted arguments made by those arguing to exclude trans participation in woman’s and girl’s sports. As a former volleyball player, it was easy to see that claims made about the San Jose volleyball player’s hitting power were exaggerated. She wasn’t hitting hard for a division 1 athlete. But the lawsuit required testimony showing a safety issue and so a safety issue had to be invented.
Oh, if Gavin Newsome thinks the CA rules on participation are unfair, he should have vetoed the law instead of waiting until now and putting the spotlight on a single high school athlete.
A relaxed approach toward desegregation for younger athletes is an excellent example of a compromise that I am no longer sure is possible due to the furious intensity of the debate. In fact, I think all of this is very reasonable, and would be broadly accepted if we all agreed that we want to maximally include people who were different without threatening competitive fairness. I just don't think enough of us agree that we should want that.
"I don’t see any reason to prohibit trans athletes who medically/hormonally transition before puberty to participate according to their gender identity."
It's not quite as simple as that, since whether such medical transition before puberty should even be happening is also a highly contested issue.
Finally, someone bringing this truth back to the discussion: sports are inherently unfair. I was never any good at running events, swimming, or anything to do with a ball, and too heavy to jump too well, but when I was put on slalom skis, few kids kept up, locally - it’s so common for you to be locally dominant and then be a nothing at regional level. A family member became national champion for Greco-Roman wrestling. Our family tends towards a combination of fast and slow muscle that suits extended use of strength, but isn’t good for explosive (jumping) or, in combination with our thick frames, endurance (swimming, running). Some of us are really wide or deep and thin people can’t generate the same kind of acceleration or elevation in absolute height by rotating the hips from the mat as someone with hip BONES (not fat, actual bones of the hip) in 95th and up percentile. Take a pencil and turn it 45 degrees. How much higher is the elevated side now? Not much at all. Lay a book on the table and raise one edge by 45 degrees, see the difference? Try staying on top of my relative when he bucks and you lose contact with the mat! I’ve been the training dummy for skilled people so I have felt this myself, no greater teacher than experience. Good skills to have in psychiatry, too.
The different proportions, twitch fibers and neural capabilities mean that Michael Phelps couldn’t be beaten by almost anyone in the US for a good time, no matter how hard these other people trained or wanted to. And wasn’t beaten by anyone in the world for a number of competitions.
So little Timantha was never going to be a Real Winner, however you define it.
But the issue was never about sports, it was about policing what is a Real, Proper, Woman is (see: African athletes being disproportionately affected by the exclusion rules!). And, of course, making any minority rights issue a cultural war issue to attack ‘the left’. The same people are adamant that no child, no-one, really, gets to transition because their condition simply doesn’t exist, and they trigger the disgust reaction, so away from the public life you go.
And here in the trenches of psychiatry, we work with very, very, incomplete knowledge every day, and we try to find ways to help our patients, and some of those ways are not backed by any rigorous science, just our clinical experience, and that’s your garden variety depression (oh, it turns out there’s a thousand different manifestations of depression!) or anxiety. Although I practice in Finland, so obviously our processes are better for the patients, trans or not, than what you see in the US.
“When you try to tell a normie that there is no problem associated with biological males competing against biological females, and that if they think there is, it’s a consequence of their being stupid and hateful, you are giving them a kind of psychic gut punch. It doesn’t come across as an expression of tolerance, it comes across as a kiss-my-boot power flex.”
This is how I see not only this issue, but the entire trans phenomena, which exploded post 2012 with the rise of smartphones and social media, unlike the gays which I remember from before then. Any sort of “social justice” dogma comes off in this Orwellian manner to me, and my only response is going to be to break out a flamethrower. There is no reasoning with such nonsense, no point in engaging rationally.
As a survivor, thank you for having common sense and a backbone. Qualities that are obviously a rarity. This comments section is a great example of lack of common sense or knowledge that this movement was never grass roots, Martine Rothblat, Pritzker, Soros, Stryker anyone…? Men and women cheering on men(no matter how they “identify”) while they fracture the skull of their female opponent with crowds cheering about “inclusivity” while a woman is getting beaten to a pulp by a man. It’s a mens rights group in a thin shiny rainbow cloak . The emperor is naked, but everyone is claiming blindness. Imagine the egregious audacity a man has in order to tell a woman, that she is not oppressed because of her sex and if she doesn’t want men to beat her in sport, she should “try and train harder.” This comment section has all outed themselves as vehement men’s rights activists.
You’re welcome, and you are right that the emperor is naked. However, you are wrong about MRAs. I was into MRA stuff for a year or so and it was about reforming divorce, improving due process , etc. Not putting men in women’s sports and restrooms lol. I think the outsiders to the MRA use that term to describe the manosphere more broadly, which includes a lot of other groups than the MRAs. Tbh I wasn’t even aware MRAs were still around lol.
If one advocates for men’s feelings/privileges/demands over female safety, that is the epitome of a men’s rights movement lol. Just stating facts here. Carry on.
The actual self identified MRAs did not push trans or gender “theory “ they had other issues they were unsuccessful in solving. Just stating the facts here.
I would agree that the self identified MRAs are not pushing this postmodernist ideology. I consider it to be the men’s rights movement of the left. For example, liberal feminism’s most sacred tenant is to protect male feelings/demands over female safety. The people spouting “men can be women” think that they are enlightened but it’s just the men’s demands movement of the left. They will “identify” as liberal feminists yet their end goal is destroying women’s sex based rights.
I guess I just find it strange and confusing that all members of your outgroup get labeled “MRAs.” I thought MRAs were defunct at this point tbh. But I’m not in your tribe, we just agree on what a woman is lmfao at what society has come to 😂
Good article, valid points, and as you alluded to, part of the reason rational discussion about this issue is so difficult is neither side has really worried too much about rational discussion this past decade or so this has been an "issue". A few points:
1. The reason this is an "issue" when 80% of Americans feel that it shouldn't be is that the 20% who feel differently overwhelmingly consist of our professional class. Yet another culture issue to make them distinct from the masses. Unfortunately for them, we do still live in a democracy, and this is one where they are clearly marking themselves out as not just different, but also straight up weird (and 'weird' is the modern polite term since as a class they do get to set the terms of the debate... at any other time in history, 'degenerate' would more likely be used). The professional class can make this an issue because they have society's microphone and control the non-democratic rule making that exists... but that then creates problems for them when voters get involved.
2. Separately from above, the professional class has spent the last 20 or so years propagandizing Americans to believe that there are no differences between men and women physically. We all know that isn't true, but when every movie and TV show with violence in it shows little women beating the fuck out of men in hand to hand.... it gets ingrained in the culture, and people start believing things that are patently untrue. A lot of women these days believe that women are as tough as men when it comes to certain things (rucking, fighting, etc), and for people who actually do those things they are clearly not. Over time the cumulative effects on women also tend to be greater. I have known women who could "hang with the boys" on certain things (like rucking, or wearing heavy gear for long periods of time).... but over a period of years, a much higher proportion of them have medboarded out.
3. A big part of this, as you also somewhat alluded to, has to do with male exclusionary places being male exclusionary. So it isn't just about men being in women's sports, but also women's locker rooms, prisons, bathrooms, etc. These are all political issues, and all occupy the same mental space for most Americans. An argument for one is, to a large extent, an argument for all. As much as men would like the Starship Troopers shower scene to be the future, for some reason women seem a bit uncomfortable with that... and men who have daughters and wives also generally are. Where are the lines drawn? I get why you focused on sports, but that isn't just an isolated issue.
4. Weight classes... not a bad idea, but not a fix I'm afraid. I've seen women fight men... a lot. Broken out by weight classes. The training is even. The weight is fairly even. I've seen a lot of men beat the fuck out of women. Men and women of even weight... the men are still faster, and hit a hell of a lot harder. They can also take punches a lot better. Men and women are just built different even if the weights are the same... and that matters in contact anything. If women are going to compete, and in the long-term survive, they need their own league.
Generally I'd specify the "professional" or "institutional" class over "college educated." College educated people who work for large organizations/institutions or adjacent ones (or who are married to those who do) dominate this category... those outside of it generally less so, even if they have a degree.
And by opposite of this “professional class, you are implying that the lower nonreader 80% of US society are the midwits, dunnykroogs, and severely undereducated, correct?
Why do you fluff the undereducated as having anything on the people more educated?
I'm not even sure what your point is here, but I don't think you under stand what I'm saying at all, whichever side you fall in on.
It is relevant to our Democracy that those who work for large institutions are aligned on value judgement political issues, relevant that on many of these political issues they don't align with most Americans and EXTREMELY relevant that they are increasingly unwilling to brook any dissent.
You are creating a strawman... read what I wrote, don't demand I defend something else. With your amazing grades and education you should be able to manage that, yes?
Every progressive (or conservative) point of view is worth considering and debating in a climate of grace and persuasion.
None are worth considering in a climate of bludgeoning and coercion.
The trans issue is rancid for more than just its innate fairness - it’s extraordinarily rancid because its activists and advocates have adopted a scorched earth, salt-the-ground attack even L Ron Hubbard would be impressed with. Trans activists gleefully destroy Harry Potter authors and Netflix comedians alike. Nothing graceful, attractive, or persuasive. Just brow beatings.
The message is now lost thanks to the messengers. The what matters, but the how, in this case, matters even more. This will be the story history writes of this issue.
1. I’m all for desegregating some but not all sports. It is indeed very weird that we segregate shooting or equestrian. I think you’re strawmanning liberals a little here by claiming that they don’t think men and women have difference in strength and speed - everyone I know recognizes this.
2. What about the fact that Olympians are often genetic freaks of nature? How different is it that Phelps has excess lung capacity and unusually long arms and that a trans woman who transitioned has lung capacity unusual for a woman? No trans woman who has done no transitioning has tried to participate in high level sports. No transwoman so far has been dominant in any sport the way many players like Serena etc have been.
3. Kids are particularly vulnerable and I think trans kids are enough in need of protection that I care more about inclusion than fairness there. This changes at higher sport levels but people who harass 8 or 10 year olds are kind of evil.
4. What the hell do we do with various intersex people? Overall how do we police this without being creepy?
My own position is somewhat close to yours - I have a draft I’m nervous to post too so I’ve thought this through in some detail. And I don’t think you’re evil or malicious :).
1. Agree on some sports being easier to desegregate than others. Don't agree about the straw man. If everyone really recognizes this, fewer should pretend they don't.
2. This one's tricky. Phelps is usually the example used, but even just Michael Jordan. There was no obvious, physical reason for him to be leagues better than any other player. He just was. I'm not sure this is useful in the trans debate, because genetic freak of naturism isn't a choice, whereas transitioning, then still wanting to compete, is. We have a higher tolerance for God/nature giving some players a leg up than when players appear to be giving it to themselves.
3. Without wishing to tread on the "trans kid" third rail, I think I agree. Also, biological advantage is less significant the younger you go. There's really no need to segregate t-ball in the first place.
4. No. F-ing. Idea. This is a really hard one, and it really bums me out that this has been folded into the much more rancorous debate over trans inclusion. People with DSDs have not chosen to have them, nor have they generally chosen their gender identity (which isn't even really the right framing for a person with a DSD). Telling a man with Kleinfelter that he isn't "really" a man would be wildly insulting. The Imane Khelif situation bothered me mightily, because it seemed totally plausible to me that Khelif, as far as she initially knew, was just an unusually strong girl. Then she finds out there's more going on, but what is she supposed to do? Many would say, she should have nobly quit, but I think that's pretty easy for observers to say and probably harder for her to just do. And I am deeply uncomfortable with internet commentators looking at folks with DSDs and just *deciding* whether they're male or female based on which is the most useful to their argument.
Actually, there have been trans Olympians. Laurel Hubbard won gold medals in several non-Olympic world weightlifting competitions before competing in the Olympics (where Laurel won no medals, but then again was also 42 years old, an absurdly late age for Olympic competition in weightlifting).
The question of Intersex athletes is also actually very difficult. To give on example, there was a controversy at the last Summer Olympics over two athletes in women’s boxing who are Intersex males. The particular condition they had (there are a whole spectrum of intersex conditions with widely varying effects on human phenotypes) gives them an outwardly normal female phenotype (even a vagina, albeit with no uterus attached), but they have internal testes and the significantly higher testosterone levels that come with them. Effectively, they’re “doping” relative to normal XX women. And IIRC it was the two of them who ended up in the gold medal match against each other. Is that fair? Or even safe for their female competition? I think that’s an extraordinarily difficult question in which both sides have some valid arguments.
In another example, it’s a relatively open secret that Intersex athletes dominate certain women’s sports categories like intermediate distance running. The famous case of Caster Semenya some years ago is illustrative but not isolated, and the Olympics has had a range of controversial policies around intersex athletes in women’s competitions. One reason they do is that prior to sex verification testing, many countries were quietly recruiting intersex athletes for their Olympic squads on purpose.
It’s very messy, and deserving of a serious debate.
You care more about inclusion and that's your prerogative. But it's not your right to sign away girls' right to play without boys you call trans kids. Both boys and girls learn a lot about socializing with their own sex through single-sex activities at early development stage. It is not your right to take that away from kids and parents who want that. Participation by someone of opposite sex always changes the group dynamics.. Set up a third mixed-sex group if that's important enough to you.
Nobody ever has the spine to answer this, but please identify the closest proximity incident to you wherein a girl was harmed by a trans kid getting to participate in PLAYGAMES too. Please name the girl and the distance in miles from your home residence.
You can’t do it—and neither can anyone else—because you’re all 100% full of shit. This is not a real issue. It exists entirely in your bigoted imaginations. Entirely.
Wow, this is completely idiotic. Many girls have been harmed after working their asses to achieve a goal, by dudes that choose to compete as girls. Just as others have been harmed by having to compete against athletes on steroids. If you have ever competed in team or individual sports you would understand how ridiculous your argument is.
Nobody? Nobody? People have been giving the likes of you answers but you won't listen. Then you go around making accusations that no one would answer you.
What point do you think you’re making? Yes he is not absolutely dominant over many generations? But no trans woman has been even as dominant as he was. Or as Serena or even Venus was.
My point is no trans woman has dominated a woman’s sport yet so it’s hard to take the claim that they have an overwhelming advantage seriously.
Obviously men. Men have an overwhelming advantage over women in swimming all the lengths people do at the Olympics. Trans women do not seem to have the same overwhelming advantage but if there is enough data to convince a sports governing body otherwise I’m open to those specific bans.
Why does the bar have to be set at domination? Why do women and girls have to bend over backward forgoing and giving up their rights and opportunities while these men (or male bodied people if you prefer) won't make the slightest compromise? Can't you see how incredibly sexist you're being?
You talk as if men and "trans women" are two separate sexes. You can shut down that part of your brain and train your own mind to think that way. But you can't force the rest of us to be brainwashed. They're both males. Just because you redefined "men" and "women" doesn't mean everyone has to comply.
Even if one *is* inclined to set the bar at domination, that's still unsustainable. You simply cannot have a system that allows sport participation...until the athlete gets good, then they're out.
My point is that whatever Phelps’ advantages, they’re clearly well within the bounds of male capability - his physical advantages are not close to the differences between sexes. Phelps is always used as a strawperson and it does not stand up to logical scrutiny.
I don’t think fairness only matters if someone is dominating. Take Laurel Hubbard, for example. Prior to transition she was a relatively mediocre male lifter. She transitioned and was winning competitions, despite being far, far older than the majority of lifters. She got a place at the Olympics instead of an exceptional female lifter. Women’s sport shouldn’t be a second chance for mediocre males - males who would come nowhere near to those levels without transition. The integrity of women’s sport is important.
The scientists who’ve presented on this to various sporting bodies (Rugby, Swimming, Athletics) have shown that males do retain some advantage post-transition. It’s tough, I understand, but unless we desegregate male/female sport, I don’t see the point of them being separate at all if those categories don’t hold. Open/female categories would be absolutely fine. Everyone can take part.
“Women’s sport shouldn’t be a second chance for mediocre male” - I think it fair to have restrictions on professional sports by their governing body. To say there is unfair advantages for trans women to compete against other biological women seems reasonable too. I wouldn’t ever imply that someone transitioned just for competitive edge though and such language makes one’s argument dubious to being fair minded and in good faith.
I appreciate that my language is blunt. I was not suggesting that anyone chooses to transition to gain an advantage in sport. Rather - a side effect of transitioning is opportunities in sport that were otherwise not available, which necessarily took away opportunities for exceptional female athletes. It’s a minor point, but I think it does go to the integrity of women’s sport.
In sporting parlance: “yeah, nah”. I’m one of those people who cares about both sport and women’s rights. At the root of this issue is whether you believe women have a right to single-sex sport. If you don’t, and you think that men’s self-perception should be prioritised, then you will be looking for all sorts of compromises, all of which will be detrimental to female athletes in one way or another. Weight categories?! Seriously?! A 55kg man can lift magnitudes heavier than a 55kg woman. Men have much greater tackling, punching or hitting power and that’s not to mention women’s greater vulnerability to injury. The most obvious solution is not weight categories or quotas, it is the renaming of the men’s category as an open category, so that people with any identity can compete in it, while at the same time ringfencing the female category.
I appreciate that you mentioned trans-identified females; they truly will be excluded if they choose to take testosterone, so instead many don’t, they wait, they compete in the female category, and, if they choose to, medicalise later.
Also, if you use the term “cis” to describe natal women, you have to understand this is not a neutral term, this is ideological language. This descriptor has been thrust upon women without their consent, making women a sub-section of their own sex-class so as to accomodate and defend men as “women” too.
And women’s rights supporters are well and truly over this narrative of the “toxic” debate, with both sides being equally vituperative. Women and their allies have been deplatformed, cancelled, sacked, investigated, sued, deselected, assaulted, slandered and silenced thanks to the pushers of this fake civil rights movement.
Thanks for replying. Yes, both sides hate each others’ arguments, but I don’t hate anyone. However, if educational, cultural, media, government authorities etc. have told sex-realist women that they are bigots, and emboldened others to do the same, that’s really not both sides is it? I have never seen or heard anyone encourage physical violence against trans people at a women’s rights protest.
And, woman is a foundational word in our vocabulary that has been colonised by men; you don’t think it’s worth fighting about, but maybe that’s because you’re less affected by the redefinition. I’m also bored by the language war, but we didn’t start this.
And I do think the open category format is the only way to have maximal participation in sport.
"maybe that’s because you’re less affected by the redefinition" - absolutely this. I freely admit it. You're also right about the dimensions of the debate, and I maybe should have made more effort to point that out in my piece. I have never, for example, seen J.K. Rowling suggest that a person who disagreed with her should commit suicide or be raped. The reverse, however....
I really only raised the issue at all to explain my own cowardice in failing to write about this sooner. It wasn't to claim that both sides were equally responsible for the rancor.
As to ‘cis,’ the problem is that just saying ‘woman’ isn’t neutral either. I realize you’d prefer that it were, and that until very recently, it unquestionably was. But it only takes one side to problematize language. That’s frustrating but it’s true. You find ‘cis’ alienating, which I respect. Others find ‘woman,’ with an implied “real” before it alienating. And while I really don’t respect that, I go along with it because my choice is to either go with the flow and hope my broader point is heard, or get bogged down in a language war that I have no interest in fighting. It’s lose-lose. It’s also boring as hell.
And sure, I hear what you’re saying about my both-sidesing this, but I don’t think I’m wrong. Both sides fucking hate each other. That your side has more cause to doesn’t refute that observation.
The bottom line, to me, is the amount of work and sacrifice athletes make to compete. For every little girl that decides she’s going to concentrate on swimming, basketball, softball and yes, fencing, there are parents that get up early in the morning to get them to practices. That drive all over the country for national meets and then to watch all those hard years of work, dedication and tears end when a man decides he wants to transition in college so he can compete as a woman is beyond unfair. This is where I draw the line. I don’t care if you decide to transition—-go for it. But stay out of women’s sports. If this is allowed, how many girls will give up their dreams because they see they’ll never achieve what a biological male will??
I absolutely see this. My suggestions were mostly tongue-in-cheek; "if there's really no difference, here's something we could try." I touch on the point you make here in my upcoming piece. John Oliver made fun of the organization, She Won, in his recent episode about trans women in sport for supposedly over counting the number of medals won unfairly by trans women. But that group's logic is consistent, even if some disagree with it. When team membership and/or achievement is finite, anything won by a trans competitor represents something taken away from a person for whom the category exists in the first place. Advocates for inclusion should at least be honest about this.
"I could not possibly care less if even the admittedly bad ones end up ruining something you love. Because it is not a thing that I love. I just don’t care."
It appears we agree on the general issue, but I'm not interested in reading the long-winded thoughts of someone on an issue that they don't actually give a shit about. Honestly, the hubris is breathtaking.
I suspect a lot of people who think TG women should get to play competitive, organized sports with women also don't give a shit about sports. They too should go the fuck away.
What do the vast majority of women who play competitive sports think? I bet if they didn't think they would get harassed by an obnoxious vocal minority of lunatics we'd find out 99% don't think it's fair either.
Finally, no sports league owes TG women anything. Want to be TG? Fine. That does not entitle you to everything else you want.
That’s perfectly reasonable, which is why I stated it up front. Although to clarify, I do care about the issue. I just care about its impact on the discourse and on the fortunes of large political movements more than I care about its impact on sport.
Great article! I am, however, a bit confused about the frame of the trans sports discussion, though.
Isn't the whole point of sports to facilitate interesting competition? I find it odd that the topic of trans sports is approached from the frame of fairness when, so long as interesting competition remains, what's the harm?
I don't really know if trans women have an advantage over cis women or not. Very frankly, I don't care if they do. Physical characteristics are determined randomly via a lottery of birth—the biological advantage Michael Phelps has over other men is unfair, just as the biological advantage a man has over a woman is unfair. In my view, the best reason Michael Phelps shouldn't've been disqualified from competing is simply because interesting competition is better facilitated with Phelps's inclusion.
I suppose insofar as the perception of fairness is important to audience enjoyment, we should care about fairness. However, I really don't think anyone would really care about an unfair advantage trans women have if it weren't the central battleground of the culture war.
Honestly, I don't know if the inclusion of trans women would be beneficial to facilitating interesting competition. However, it does seem to me that if anyone does know, it'd be sports authorities.
Why not just defer to sports authorities on this issue?
As for this argument:
"Why do you care? This basically never happens. Trans people are a tiny minority. Let it go."
I think you've missed the point of the argument. The point is threefold:
1) Trans issues are a distraction.
2) Political will is better allocated elsewhere. Every second Congress spends on transgender sports is a second that could've been spent giving people food or fixing the national debt.
3) Trans athletes have a minimal effect on fairness. This point is typically deployed in response to the Lady Ballers idea that guys are transitioning en masse to destroy women in basketball or something.
For a lot of reasons, I absolutely disagree with you about 'Why do you care?' That's just not credible coming from the same group of people who pushed this in the first place. If I wasn't supposed to care...why did you insist I care? Sure, it's a distraction, and sure, we have bigger fish to fry. It wasn't my idea to spend so much time frying this one.
I like your argument about interesting competition trumping fairness though. I'm not sure I agree with it, but it is at least honest. Fairness does not *need* to be our paramount concern in sport. My objection is to people claiming there's no issue of fairness when there definitely, obviously is.
Fair point. For the record, I don't really care about trans sports. I think trans people are such a small minority the left should just drop the issue in the interest of political pragmatism.
But in terms of why each side cares:
The reason the left cares about trans sports isn't because they care about fairness, it's because they think of trans sports as an issue in the culture war. The idea is that if the right wins on the issue of trans sports, the overton window shifts right, and the next targets will be other, more important accommodations.
I think this analysis is broadly correct. I doubt the right cares much about women's basketball—it's far more likely that they care about trans sports as a wedge issue. Since wedge issues are replaceable, it's plausible that trans sports is a useful political buffer zone. This was in fact probably the case a few years ago when the social climate was very woke.
However, given the polls you've cited, it's become an untenable position, and I think the left has drunk their own kool-aid in being so stubborn on this issue.
If we set aside political considerations for a moment though, I do think the cost-benefit analysis is still very marginally in favour of the "pro-trans" side. Since people aren't transitioning en masse to get a competitive edge, interesting competition remains intact. Further, it's probably more distracting than not if a trans woman were to compete with men in, say, boxing.
To conclude:
1. I think you're right that fairness would be marginally better if sports were segregated based on assigned sex.
2. I don't think fairness is a useful consideration, and that interesting competition would be marginally better if sports were segregated based on gender identity.
3. I think being "pro-trans" on sports a few years ago before it became a huge culture war thing was good.
4. I think now, given the current political climate, that it's better for the left to give up on trans sports.
Michael Phelps records have nearly all been broken. By males. So his “advantages” were clearly within the achievable bounds of elite male swimmers. We separate sport by sex (and in some sports, also by weight and disability) because that it is the single, biggest advantage-conferring factor. We know that males and females at the same level have very different performance outcomes.
When you say "elite male swimmers", you are making a highly relevant distinction. Those who broke Phelp's record likely had amazing genetics which gave them a huge advantage.
The point isn't contingent on Phelps having an insurmountable advantage over literally everyone else, the point is that many traits, such as genetics, are unfair, but we don't really care.
Like, competitive female swimmers are better than average male swimmers. Even something like your work ethic can be chalked up to genetics or upbringing so I find it odd that we are fixated on strict fairness in competition.
What really matters is interesting competition. As I illustrate in my reply to Dave, I think interesting competition is plausibly better preserved in segregating sports by gender identity.
I am also very skeptical of the idea that sex is a single advantage-conferring factor as opposed to multiple. For instance, various sports authorities are making distinctions along hormonal lines as opposed to chromosomal or morphological lines.
I appreciate watching you grapple with these issues from the left. I did much the same, and so did many, as I was coming around (no, I'm not saying you are becoming, or have to become "a conservative", or end up where I did).
I hope you will continue to think about this and get to the point where you decide to stop using false terms like "trans girls" "trans women" and "cis people." You're still in it, Dave, the dishonesty. This is cult talk, and everyone who uses it knows deep down that it is cult talk. It's the inversion of the real. There is no such thing as any of this.
I know. The public response will be, "There's no reason for me to be disrespectful by calling them men." That's not really true. It's fear, not "fear of being disrespectful." Fear of being socially punished for not going along with it. Misplaced fear and guilt ("that guy I know who says he's trans will think I hate him, so I'm going to say 'trans woman' because deep down I'm worried that I'll be a morally bad person if I don't say it").
Every time people use these terms as if they were real, they are helping continue the lunatic cult of transgender ideology.
There are no "transgender" people. That's not real. Never has been real. Never will be. There are people who are mentally deluded, people who are traumatized, people who are narcissistic, and many variations. But none of these people are "trans."
Whether you’ll accept this as a defense or not, I don’t know, but my use of these terms shouldn’t signal my acquiescence to their supposed truth. When I say ‘trans girl,’ I’m not accepting the premise that some children are “born into the wrong body.” I’m saying it because we all know what it means, and, in my judgement, it is the least loaded and most concise way to describe a natal boy who identifies as a girl (that longer description took seven whole-ass words!)
The best analogy I can use is this, and it’s not perfect: I strongly disapprove of the term “pro life” because it does not adequately describe many of the people who oppose abortion rights. The second Bush administration was chock full of bloodthirsty warmongers, all of whom identified as “pro life.” Nonsense, I say.
Still, I would use the term when trying to write neutrally about abortion or its implications. Especially when failing to would distract from whatever broader point I might be trying to make. I generally think that ‘anti-choice’ is a more accurate descriptor for people who oppose abortion rights, but it’s heavily left-coded and strongly associated with feminism. Which, fair enough, if I’m writing something that aims to either please the left or antagonize the right. If I’m not trying for that though, using it serves only to turn off readers who might otherwise be amenable to my argument.
I realize that on trans issues, the trans activists introduced all these terms to the lexicon. So to their critics, using them at all feels like awarding them a victory. I see that, I just don’t really know what to do about it. I meant what I said in the piece: I have no interest in suiting up for this fight. I’d rather be a war correspondent here than a combatant.
As an apolitical example, I completely HATE it that everyone uses and understands the word ‘peruse’ to mean browse, when it actually means scrutinize. Ultimately though, I can either die on that hill, while also being poorly understood, or I can just go with it. Generally, I opt to go with it.
I have a piece coming out soon about race that touches on the Word Wars in a way that I think, and hope, you might find more agreeable.
I understand what you are saying, and I see the point in using the terms in writing, but I don't agree that everyone knows what they mean, especially those new to the debate. I've heard the terms used incorrectly in conversations for years. (My tipping point was in 2016, when Dolezal was scorned and Jenner was celebrated, relatively early.) Until another term enters the lexicon--and it will, this woo shall pass--I will say boy, man or male-bodied; girl, woman or female-bodied. No confusion.
Nauseous used to mean "inspiring nausea", but it has become a synonym for "nauseated". That's the hill I don't die on...but...
An expedient: women and trans "women".
Saves words, gets the point across that they are not the same thing.
There are definitely people who are transgender, and you definitely are being an asshole to them to insult them in this way. Obviously, you do not have any "fear of being disrespectful"--you enjoy it. Nor do you have any "fear of being punished." I am strenuously disagreeing with you, but if you would call my disagreement punishment then your skin is much thinner than you no doubt tell yourself it is.
Dave is not being dishonest to use terms that are, well, useful and descriptive.
I'd suggest that your assumption that you understand transgenderness better than the people who experience it, or who are close to trans people, and with your unassailable understanding are able to dismiss these quite normal people as freaks, "lunatics," and "narcissists," are part of why people on my (pro-trans) side of the debate feel so reticent to think in public about these difficult issues as Dave does here. We realize that we are playing defense and trying to protect a minority that has few allies. And it FEELS like concession of any point--such as that trans women have an on-average physical advantage over cis-women in many sports--will be seized upon by you and others who agree with you to do horrific, cruel things to these perfectly good people we know, many of whom are family members.
Just the way you talk about it is really revealing. There is no empathy in your words whatsoever, your hostility is barely concealed, and I don't know exactly what you'd like to see visited upon this marginalized population (uh-oh, there I go again using woke language), but it's pretty frightening to imagine. And if YOU yourself wouldn't enjoy watching forced de-transitions, renditions to "wellness camps," or worse, it's pretty clear we couldn't count on you to side against those who would.
I'd suggest backing off the incendiary anti-trans language on YOUR part might calm down some of the harshest language from the far left, and might open up more space for moderate liberals to speak more honestly about this issue.
As long as it feels like any concession I make is ammunition for a hateful anti-trans crowd to do cruel and inhuman things, it's really hard to speak about this. And again--you might not do cruel things yourself, but you're squarely on the side of those who would.
Nope. There is no such thing as an ontological state called "transgender."
Nope, I'm not abusing anyone. You have a deep emotional investment in something that's not true, and so you need to make me a villain. You're getting emotionally hysterical.
You don't feel reticent to talk about it at all. You're hyperventilating all over me in public. This is known as the "narcissistic reversal."
Have a good day.
I disagree. I think your words are hostile. And, you confidently assume much that you do not know, and I think that's very dangerous.
Pushing back against your words is not narcissism, and it's not hyperventilating. Your words were strong, my words were strong back at you. You should be able to handle that.
I don't' "need to make you a villain." I don't even know that you are one, but I would invite you to take seriously the worry, that moderate liberals like me have, that trans people are in real danger from people like you, or at least from people you wouldn't side against. If we are wrong, explain why we shouldn't worry so much. Insulting us and calling us narcissists doesn't help.
The "have a good day" is so typical, too. It's insulting. You definitely do not wish any such thing. I assume you don't care one whit, so to insultingly say otherwise is really silly.
I'm not in your cult.
Yeah obviously, and I'm not in yours.
OK, I'm done, moving on, and I assume you are as well.
The world of reality will prevail over the delusional, which is why no amount of pro-trans-cult bloviating will ever win this argument.
Respectfully, you erroneously believe that all people should accept that there is such thing as “gender”; this is unhelpful and illiberal.
Are there people who suffer from what is best described as “dysphoria” or profound unhappiness in one’s sexed body? Yes, there are.
That doesn’t mean people can indeed change sex, and it certainly doesn’t mean that any person should be compelled to affirm another’s belief that they have.
I’ve never heard anyone claim a person can choose their SEX. Gender is different from sex in this regard.
And I don’t “erroneously believe” that “all people should accept” that there is a thing called gender. I fully agree that no one should be “compelled to affirm” anything. Thought policing is completely unacceptable.
I support your right to refuse to accept the concept of gender and even to be as unkind to trans people as you wish, short of physically harming them. You have the right to misgender them to their face, dead-name them, tell them they’re wrong about their gender, and think what you will about them. I want you to have that right. There should never be thought policing.
Speech policing too is generally unacceptable unless it rises to the level of incitement to violence or overt harassment. For example, you absolutely have the right to say to a trans person, “I don’t believe in transness and I think you’re wrong in thinking you’re female. In fact, I think you’re lying,” but you DON’T have the right to yell at them close to their face and attempt to incite them to lose control and fight you, even though that’s “speech.”
But you can refuse to accept trans people, and you can tell them that you think they’re wrong, crazy, lying, dishonorable or even evil. And likewise, I have the right to think you’re being a jerk to be so unaccepting.
I accept that some people are unhappy with their bodies.
I am not obliged morally or ethically to affirm their delusions or notions about themselves.
That you and others continue to frame this as “unkind” is exactly why we are where we are today.
Your choice to affirm a man’s “identity” as female is no more “kind” than my choice to acknowledge reality.
But by all means, carry on with the emotional blackmail, and self righteous approach— it’s working so well.
Any dictionary published before publishers became woke defines "gender" as nothing more than a synonym for "sex". The present-day complication of its definition isn't English, it's just a very recent woke social construct. There are no "trans people". There are only delusional, mentally unhealthy individuals pretending to be what they most certainly are not. Yes, I am unaccepting. Very unaccepting. If you think I even remotely care that you think I'm a jerk, just add that delusion to your list of fantasies. And stay the hell out of women's sports and locker rooms.
Just gotta point out that at the beginning of a sentence you said you aren't making Josh a villain, and by the end of that sentence you said that trans people are in real danger from him.
Tried to be careful to say something like “or people he would not side against.” I do not hold that he would personally wish or perpetrate harm on a trans person. If I suggested that, then I should have been clearer, because I obviously don’t know him like that.
Also, I do think trans people are in danger, but not everyone who would remain silent in the face of their persecution is a “villain.” Many Germans were silent as Jews were exterminated, but not every ordinary German was a full-blown villain.
Feel like my words are being a little twisted by some in this thread. I’m trying to be careful not to make sinister personal accusations. If I have done so, it was not my intent.
No, this is correct. Just replace the word "transgender" with "Atlantean". No difference. It's a self-defined term and an unverifiable concept. There is no way to tell the difference between a man pretending to be a woman and a man pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman.
"There are definitely people who are transgender"
What evidence would one use to support this claim? (I cannot help but notice that you did not try to invoke any of it in your response).
I’m using their self-report. In the definition I’m using, if a person feels that they are a gender that doesn’t correspond to their biological sex, they are transgender. Millions of people report feeling this way, so either they are all lying—that is, they don’t actually feel this sense, but falsely say they do—or there are people who are transgender.
I guess by my definition, the “claim” that transgender people exist is quite mundane and doesn’t seem to require empirical study.
I suppose maybe one could define transgenderness in such a way as to require more evidence of its “genuine existence” than the representations of trans people that they really feel as they do? But I don’t know what that definition would entail.
I mean, do gay people exist? If you would not accept a person’s representation that they are genuinely sexually attracted to people of their own gender, I suppose you could argue that “there’s no evidence gayness is even a thing.” Indeed I know a person who denies there is even a condition called “gay.” He argues everyone is heterosexual, but some people claim to be gay for various (nefarious, obviously) purposes, or falsely believe that they are “gay,” a condition that doesn’t even exist.
This seems absurd to me. I don’t know how to empirically differentiate “a man thinking he is attracted to men” from “a man being attracted to men,” such that only the latter category constitutes “really being gay.”
Same with transness. How would you demonstrate a bio-male person who thinks they feel female doesn’t really feel that way?
I think someone like Josh would agree that there are "millions of people who report feeling that way".... but so what? The question is what that means.
I think the analogy to homosexuality fails. Sexual attraction is inherently a subjective experience. The *feeling* is the *thing*. If a man says "I'm attracted to men", well, we all know what it means to be sexually attracted.... and who would know better than they do who they are attracted to?
Transness is not the same thing at all. What does it *mean* for a man to "think they feel like a woman"?
The feeling is not the same as the thing.
Are they saying that they *are* a woman? Well, they're not. (XY chromosomes, a penis, etc)
Are they saying that "feeling like a woman" is something different from being a woman? OK, but what does "feeling like a woman" mean?
The rebuttal I've heard is "well you know what it's like to 'feel like a man' don't you?" And my honest answer is "no I don't". I don't know what it means to "feel like a man". It's not even a meaningful thing to say. I *am* a man. My feelings have nothing to do with it.
Yes, some people have convinced themselves that they have "gendered souls" that are mismatched to their bodies. Sometimes they do this for political reasons. "Wouldn't it be nice if I could make a political statement by repudiating my masculinity?" Again, I respect everyone's human rights, including the right to be misguided, but I think the whole thing is rather sad frankly.
There isn’t any.
It’s not a matter of him being disrespectful at all. It is not disrespectful to say they have a mental illness when they have a mental illness. Unless you think facts are disrespectful somehow. You’re not denying a person’s humanity when you say, these people are mentally ill. Because they are. And that’s a reason to have some empathy for them.
So when you say there are definitely people who are transgender, you are also, really just saying they are mentally ill as well. I say “really” because I think what you’re saying is that they see, think of or feel themselves to actually BE, that is, EXIST as the opposite sex of their established biology. They can see themselves, think of themselves and feel themselves to be women (in the case of Trans women), but they aren’t. Because they are men who happen to be suffering some form of a mental illness.
Dave is right. Indeed, spot on. They are boys/men with mental health problems. They are not girls. They are not women. And I’d never insult girls or women by trying to say they are. What they need is not nodders (nodding heads saying, “Yes they are”) but the services of mental health professionals. Psychotherapy if you will.
Suggesting a person has a mental illness is not necessarily disrespectful, though it can be, depending on the context. Using a word like “lunatic” is, however, and reveals the spirit in which the suggestion of mental illness is employed.
Also the arrogation to oneself of the authority to say with certainty that “trans people don’t exist” is pretty dismissive. This in a time when conservatives have literally used the word “eradicate” when talking about trans people. In this environment, confident dismissals are dangerous.
The post did not say, “I honestly think there is mental illness involved here, and with proper help many of these people will no longer see themselves as trans.” I still think that’s probably empirically incorrect, but a post like that would not have brought my pushback. A conservative-driven movement to open-mindedly investigate transness, help those who might mistakenly confuse their feelings with being transgender, while allowing that evidence may support that others may authentically be trans, would not be objectionable to me—but that’s not at all what’s on offer here. What we have is “they’re lunatics, they’re narcissists, they’re lying, they don’t exist.” You plucked the one arguably unobjectionable characterization—suffering from mental illness—and used it to suggest my pushback was unfair.
I honestly don't even know what it would mean to "investigate transness". What is there to investigate? Presumably, in this investigation, we'd be setting out to find "evidence that would support that someone may authentically be trans", but what does "being authentically trans" even *mean*? An equivalent question: What would "evidence" for this supposed condition look like?
As soon as you start asking these questions it becomes apparent that there are no answers and the whole edifice collapses. In the words of Richard Feynman, it's "not even wrong". I don't think the exasperated hostility you are encountering is surprising, although the undiplomatic tone of some of these comments is unhelpful.
Well “allowing that evidence may support that others may authentically be trans” is I think a misconception. If you’re saying they are “authentically “ women, it’s like saying a dog can be an authentic cat.
So the mental illness part I don’t really have a problem saying that. Mental health conditions are ubiquitous. As a society we need to be more blunt in recognizing and dealing with it. I wonder how many “trans women” have friends, family, neighbors, school officials willing to engage honestly with them to say they need mental health therapy? And offering help to that end?Isn’t that a better course than empty affirmations of personal solidarity and the disastrous “gender affirming care”?
The problem here is definitional. No one who is biologically male claims they can become a woman by YOUR definition. Your definition would require that they be genotypically XX, have gestation organs instead of insemination organs, etc. absolutely no trans person I’ve ever known would claim that such a metamorphosis is possible. So we are talking past each other if you think any biological male thinks they can achieve that. (If anyone thought that, then they’re delusional, but almost zero trans people think that.)
They, and I, are using a different definition of “woman,”—a cultural one. I understand you may claim that such a definition is impermissible, but words mean what their speaker intends them to mean. You can say “I don’t recognize the definition you’re using, please use other terminology,” and I’ll do you that service, but when I say “woman,” in the context of THIS conversation, I mean “someone who feels they are culturally an adult female.” In other contexts, I might use your definition of woman: adult human biological female.
If you were to respond that it’s bizarre or somehow dishonest for me to switch between different definitions of woman, I would gladly give you a list of hundreds of words that have multiple definitions that you yourself use, in multiple ways, every day.
Everett, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and respond as if you’re arguing/debating in good faith.
What you continue to fail to understand is this:
Being female, and being a woman, isn’t a “cultural” experience, and MOST people are really sick and tired of any/all attempts to advocate that it is.
It is not.
Being female is a biological state of being.
A woman is a female who is legally recognized as an adult.
No male can “feel” female, because he isn’t.
Boys and men can WANT to be female, no one would deny that this feeling exists.
Again, what you are failing to grasp, is that people are increasingly fed up with any social or political movement that requires other people to affirm that simply because a person wants to be the other sex, they are then (in law / society) magically the other sex.
There is no “transition” of sex, and any member, of either sex, can perform ANY “gender” they wish to — no transition has or needs to occur.
If a person claims to:
1) Have a “gender identity”;
2) And feels it’s “wrong”;
3) Therefore needs to “change” or “transition” — Fine. Whatever.
But no one should be compelled to believe in any of those three things.
Because they’re fantastical.
Finally, please accept that many of us who reject “gender” are not conservatives.
Some are.
But not all. By a long shot.
No male will ever be female.
No man will ever be a woman.
Perform culture or societal stereotypes all day / any day.
You haven’t changed sex.
Most people do not believe in “gender”.
And whether you like it or not, the vast majority of people believe there are certain situations in this world that in deed call for the recognition of the reality of sex.
"They, and I, are using a different definition of “woman,”—a cultural one."
But what is this "cultural definition"? What is its content? Your list of the biological markers of masculinity is a concession that every definition needs some content.
What does it mean to "feel culturally that they are an adult female"? To be an "adult female, culturally speaking", does not give you extra powers to do anything that you couldn't do when you were an adult male. Want to be a nurse? Check. Sleep with men? Check. Drive a pink car? Check. Knock yourself out (with my blessing).
This desire to "be culturally an adult female" seems to simply boil down to a desire (if not a demand) to be *seen by others* as an adult female.
But... they're not!
Do you not see where the conflict is coming from? Most of us would be happy to live and let live, but their "transness" *requires* our affirmation and participation. The reason I see an adult female as a "cultural adult female" is that ... drumroll please... they are in fact an adult female! Not to mention the fact that there are genuine competing concerns (like fairness in sports, etc etc).
Instead of relaxing traditional gender roles (which I'm 100% fine with), we're just baking them in. You like playing with dolls? You must be a girl. No wonder gay men like Andrew Sullivan are incensed by all this.
It’s of no moment to me, really, that a biological male, thinks and says he’s a woman. Or even if he adds the gloss that he only means it “culturally.” Though even much cultural dynamics flow directly from biological characteristics. . However, it’s when that man insists that all people treat him as though he is a woman, use the pronouns he insists upon, insists that he be allowed to invade the privacy and spaces for biological girls and women that a dead end is reached. That cannot and need not be tolerated.
What I meant to say was that Josh has it right. I wasn’t referring to Dave’s original piece but Josh’s initial comment.
Hi Everett,
I appreciate your thoughtful responses here and in the following thread. (And your use of semi-colons; ha). I was a bit startled by some of the language used in response to Dave's article and I'd like to add to the conversation by providing some information about what research actually shows.
Being transgender is not a mental illness. It’s also not just a social trend or something people are talked into. Studies from neuroscience, psychology, and medicine show that transgender identity is a real and deeply rooted part of who someone is. It’s shaped by a mix of biology (like brain development and hormones) and life experience — not just one or the other. (Search this in ChatGPT, then look up the numerous peer-reviewed studies they cite).
Major health organizations, like the World Health Organization and the American Psychiatric Association, have made it clear: being transgender isn’t a disorder. What can cause distress is when a person’s body or social environment doesn’t match who they know themselves to be — that’s called gender dysphoria, and it’s the distress that is treated, not the identity.
It’s also important to remember: cultures around the world, for thousands of years, have recognized that not everyone fits neatly into "male" or "female" boxes. Being transgender isn’t new — only the language and social visibility have changed.
Bottom line: Being transgender is a natural part of human diversity, not a disease or a fad.
Thanks for that. I am not well-read in the scientific or social-science literature. It’s interesting to know that there’s neuroscience research on transness. I should familiarize myself with that, as I’m arguing here without benefit of that knowledge.
Nonetheless, I know what the trans-suspicious response will be: the research literature cannot be trusted because it is infected by pro-trans ideology, thus any papers casting transness as nonexistent, or gender-affirming care as harmful, or in anyway contradicting pro-trans claims, will struggle to find publication, and that researchers doing trans-related research that doesn’t support the advancement of trans wishes will be drummed out of the academy, hence the research you cite is biased and screened to ensure the result it supports.
And I do concede that scientists and social scientists, and certainly the clinical psychology/therapist community, almost certainly have a trans-supportive bias, so I cannot completely discount the possibility that the research literature might de-emphasize results that contradict pro-trans claims.
Thus, I have tried to stake out a position that doesn’t not require, say, that neuroscience “prove transness is real” by finding it in fMRI imaging, and so forth.
Even if transness were some kind of error on the part of the trans person (I’m not sure how a subjective self-concept can be erroneous, but for the sake of argument, let’s say it is), I don’t see its harm. And being in error does not equate to being in an evil cult. For example, I think a majority of Americans are in error in believing that a magical, immaterial entity named Yahweh controls activity on earth and punishes nonbelief in him via eternal fire. And I even support them in this belief by agreeing, as a democratic participant, to allow them to own property tax-free (churches) where they consistently affirm their commitment to this error. I could argue this is a sinister cult, but I don’t; rather, I think religion is part of human experience for some but not all people, and I just let people live their lives in the way that feels right to them.
My point is: I don’t think transness is an error or a delusion, but it wouldn’t change my view if I could be convinced it somehow is. People should get to have their errors and not be rejected.
Really appreciate how open and thoughtful your response is.
You're right — no research field is totally free from bias, but when multiple disciplines (neuroscience, psychology, endocrinology) find similar patterns independently, it strengthens confidence in the bigger picture.
But honestly, like you said, scientific proof isn’t the real heart of it — it’s about respecting people’s right to live in a way that feels true to them.
Thanks again for engaging in such a decent and open way.
That’s a fiction that some perv or mentally ill person dreamt up, and you choose to believe it. There is no evidence for it, because it’s not true to begin with. Just there are men who believe they have wolf or tiger blood in them. Or marrying an anime character is perfectly normal.
Your language—“perv”—reveals your agenda. And you’re not the only person in this thread for whom that’s the case. The nature of transness and the rise in trans-identifying youth may be worth discussion, but not with you.
Every time I start thinking, “wait, do conservatives have any reasonable points on transness?” and open my mind to discussion, this seems to happen: the mask falls briefly, with words like “freak,” “perv,” “narcissist,” and “lunatic,” and I see you for who you are. Thanks for the reveal, I guess.
Oh no! I’m exposed!
Did you you really think I care about your views of me? Pull your head out of your ass.
Yes, you are! I did not mean to suggest that I think you care what I think of you. I wouldn’t think you’d be that thin-skinned. Glad to know you’re not.
The cruelty is to the ‘trans’ person in not speaking truthfully to them now and in the past. There is no such thing as a trans woman or a trans man. We all have to help them regain some mental health.
The cruelty is to the ‘trans’ person in not speaking truthfully to them now and in the past. There is no such thing as a trans woman or a trans man.
This has been a really educational experience for me, as a lot of people have attacked my view here. I have to say, I had misjudged the anti-transgender view. I thought most “anti-trans” views were driven by concern that young trans-identifying people would undergo medical procedures they’d regret later, or that their presence in women’s spaces would make cisgender women uncomfortable. Or perhaps that they’d bring unfairness into women’s sport. Those are understandable concerns.
But I was wrong. The thread running through many of the comments is, instead, a not-very-veiled hostility to trans people themselves. They are seen as a grave menace. They are perverts, sexual predators, narcissists, liars, lunatics, freaks, they are forwarding an ideology, they are authoritarians trying to force others to live on their terms.
I didn’t realize this level of hostility was driving anti-trans positions.
I don’t know what the people in this thread would or would not tolerate as far as persecuting trans people, but if trans people are the menace they’re portrayed to be, it’s disturbing to imagine what might be supported.
I know a few trans people. They’re absolutely nothing like the damning descriptions I am reading here. They are not menaces.
And I think they have every reason to be very afraid. I appreciate the education.
I worry a lot about this too. Particularly because it’s a structural problem that isn’t going to be easy to solve. Bigotry dies when confronted with familiarity. People scoff at “I have a black friend” defenses, but having friends in a targeted group makes you far less susceptible to generalized hostility toward them. The same is true for trans people. If you actually know them, they aren’t an abstraction, and you won’t be tempted to let TikTok weirdos define them. But trans people are so few in number, real human connection can’t compete with media narratives. It’s both very sad and very dangerous.
I my personal experience, I have not encountered trans people who I would describe using these terms, although I do know that some trans women in particular are driven by a sexual fetish - Andrea Long Chu and Jessica Yaniv would be prominent examples. I have, however, personally experienced the coercion used by some trans people and by their many allies to force others to unnaturally mold their language to be sensitive of their feelings, even when the trans person is not present. In my personal experience this is not something most trans people are interested in, but it is something some of them are interested in, and crucially, in my own experience the desire to coerce others seems to be independent of any dysphoria. The reality is, if you attempt to exert coercive control over others, you will be quietly hated by those others. It has made me quite angry to be forced to use wrongsex pronouns for a person who obviously has no issues with their sexed body, although I do not hold this against all trans people. It's sad because like I said, most trans people I know aren't into this, but the few who are and their progressive allies are driving a strong backlash in what I find a fully understandable way.
That said, I am not aware of any credible dangers to trans people at present. Not being allowed to play on the girl's team is not a form of danger, and neither is not being allowed to medically transition before 18. Most trans people who are murdered are prostitutes killed by their purchasers - trans people who aren't trapped in prostitution have a 'normal' murder rate.
Anecdotal datapoint for you - as far as I'm concerned "young trans-identifying people would [undergoing] medical procedures they’d regret later" is the only issue I'm concerned with. I find this so objectionable that I would, strategically, surrender on every other issue in the so-called "trans debate" in order to prevent this - or at least impose severe oversight of these procedures. Sports, bathrooms, pronouns, etc. - the TRAs can have their way on all of it.
The State of Minnesota (and other states) can now, by statute, remove a child from the custody of a parent that objects to medical/surgical intervention. Given the inconclusiveness of the science used to support medical/surgical intervention on minors, this state of affairs is an abomination.
This was, I think, the breaking point for a lot of casual observers. I’m not going to pretend to know how to care for a child with severe gender dysphoria. I don’t know enough. But it’s also going to be impossible for me to trust the “expertise” of people who are heinously wrong in all the other things they’re saying about kids - especially if they touch on subjects I do know about. If your justification for gender care for minors is that “KiDs kNoW tHeMsElVeS,” bye! You have now lost all credibility with me. I would sooner take astronomy advice from a flat-earther.
"Those are understandable concerns."
I invite you to reflect on the number of trans advocates who *do not* think those are understandable concerns, and that they reflect nothing but bigotry. If you think those are "understandable concerns", try advocating for those concerns and see how it goes.
"They are perverts, sexual predators, narcissists, liars, lunatics, freaks, they are forwarding an ideology, they are authoritarians trying to force others to live on their terms."
There's sometimes more than a grain of truth to these characterizations, is there not?
is there anymore a grain of truth to trans people being perverts than any other group? if so why do you think that?
You were surprised? Did you not see the national advertisements Trump ran during the last election? It would be nice to believe that people form their opposition based on a fair evaluation of the subject. But fear of Bad Other has been dominating the playbook for thousands of years.
Maybe I was too charitable, but I’d rather start too charitable and be sadly proven wrong than the other way around.
Totally get that. You are right. My real point is not to be a cynic but to think about the state of discourse in terms of this very powerful and ancient fear-based myth (Bad Other). To name it, paradoxically, allows me more compassion — I myself can resist the idea of a Bad Other when I imagine the fear beneath the hate. But to be charitable as you were is also to unravel the myth; you have refused to assume without evidence that your opponent is ill-intentioned.
"There are no transgender people".
That may be so, but I'm not sure what hinges on it. My view has always been that "trans people" (whether you think that's a thing or not), are *people*, and should have all the political and human rights of people. (which does not necessarily include being treated as their preferred gender in absolutely every context). Even if I think they are misguided in some important ways in how they are presenting themselves to the world, well, there are a lot of misguided people out there. As a liberal I have to make my peace with that, not to force others to see themselves as I see them.
Transgender is just a new label for an old issue: people who do not accept societally created sex roles.
I have helped transsexuals with gaining new ids and legally changing their names. So perhaps it is you, Mr Young who is the problem by tribalistically accepting the arguments that an ill defined group's views and language should be IMPOSED on others.
I have not proposed imposing anything on anyone.
I have suggested trans people would like to be treated a certain way, and do treat them otherwise strikes me as unkind. But I have defended your right to treat them however you wish (verbally, obviously), while defending my own right to say I think you’re being a jerk to do so.
Show me where I e proposed a real imposition. I seriously think you are mischaracterizing my position.
But most people do treat trans people as they present. The insistence on language change is top down authoritarianism - especially attempts to control speech between third parties in which a trans person is not involved for example.
Trans people’s civil rights are protected under US law (see Bostick). They can marry as they please. Perspective on this issue has been lost. People are really angry at me for saying the bathroom and changing room issues were largely irrelevant when the issue was post operative transsexuals - and probably would be today.
Sports is another issue. Even Caitlin Jenner and Renee Richards agree “transwomen” don’t belong in women’s sport.
The vast majority understand that there is no such thing as “girldick” and that housing male self-id transwomen in women’s prisons is a bad idea on its face. And that is aside from the data that indicates such males are four times more likely than the average male inmate to be sex offenders.
Asking, even insisting, that people use pronouns they don’t want to…that’s “authoritarianism?” Wow, that seems like a wild exaggeration…unless you can show me where someone has proposed a law forcing ordinary citizens to do so. If that’s happened, I would oppose it.
Without the force of the state, people can insist on all kinds of things, and it’s not authoritarianism.
I need to push back a bit here. Social consensus can absolutely create the conditions of authoritarianism without force of the state. Even a rather mundane “cancellation” can lead to functional banishment. Starvation even, if it means you can’t work anymore. And none of that requires the threat of state violence. I think we gloss over this in the west, the US especially, because our legal protections are from state-enforced authoritarianism. But talk to someone who’s been targeted by a more organic dictatorship of thought/speech and they’ll assure you: it’s just as real.
There were indeed some “cancellations” that may have been unjust during peak “cancel culture.” And those cancellations were unjust.
But if we are going to equate onerous cultural expectations with state authoritarianism, I feel like we are stretching the definition of authoritarianism close to the point of uselessness. We all make concessions to cultural acceptability. Even liberals!
There’s a lot about culture that sucks, but that doesn’t equate to North Korea.
As an illustration, couldn’t any woman say, “you privileged men are ridiculous…we women have to be VERY careful what we do every day. For us, it’s always authoritarianism. It’s daily North Korea.” There’s a certain truth to that, but it also obliterates the usefulness of the term “authoritarian.” We need to be able to say “this sucks for people, but that doesn’t make it authoritarianism.”
No. I think Mill made a pretty good argument to the contrary. Moreover, both in the US and Europe government does mandate language - from pronouns to Gulf of America. Pronoun requirements get prescribed in regulations. Judges mandate women refer to male rapists as "she," its government working with the private sector. In STATE universities, failure to use the "right" pronouns can lead to discipline against even TENURED faculty. And lets not even discuss the harassment (including death threats) of faculty in the UK and US that is left largely unremedied.
At the risk of being rude I laughed out loud at “from the left.”
His substack feed:
Totally made up story about Mamdani based entirely on his supposition
You can’t blame the GOP for the results of their policies - that’s mean!
Anti-wokeness screed
Anti-feminist screed
Anti-Dem post
A defense of MAGA conservatives
Come on man.
He’s welcome to his opinions but let’s be honest about what they are: this is a guy who is nominally “on the left” because conservatives love to hear from leftists who only write about how the left is bad. These “heterodox” guys (there are so many of them!) are either conservatives working a smart angle, or they’re guys hopelessly addicted to metrics, adulation, etc, who have consciously or not realized that being a “leftist” who only bashes the left is way more lucrative than being an actual leftist.
This is a guy who puts out right-wing material for a right-wing audience, which is, at this point, an easy-to-recognize type of pundit.
Correct. There is no such thing as a trans person. Mentally ill and/or surgically disfigured but trans is not a category. Male and Female are the categories and one does not get to decide which. It’s in the DNA.
Evidence? Do a little research.
Are gay people "mentally deluded," too?
Welcome to the party.
The thing is, the Democrats are not *only* the party of “trans rights”, they are *also and at the same time* the party of “women’s rights”. The problem is that these two constructs are in deep, apparently irreconcilable conflict over several policy areas, not just sports. (And on that, all I will say is that if the TRA’s weren’t such insanely zealous maximalists on every one of those issues, it would be really easy to come up with compromises that would probably easily be 80/20 positions with the public).
You know this is actually one of the issues that really pushed me away from the Democrats. Not sports specifically. For me it was actually all the crazy stuff going on with children. But suffice it to say that I’m actually very well read on these issues, including the sports stuff, as I’ve been following them closely for a decade or so.
Regarding that, the evidence is utterly incontrovertible that males have physical advantages over women that affect nearly all sports (bone density, lung capacity, cardiac capacity, muscle density, hand-eye coordination, spatial reasoning, height and weight, etc.). We can say “on average”, yes, but in sports the participants are not average. They are being selected for athletic ability. The higher up the chain you go (from, say, local rec league all the way up to professional sports) the more extreme the selection pressure gets such that if it’s something you’re watching on TV (other than local access), you can be sure that none of the people involved are merely average. And at the tail ends of the distribution, as in the Olympics, male advantages over females are way more dramatic than they are in the middle of the curve. Even in areas much closer to the mean it’s not that close. You mention soccer as being not a big deal, but did you know that the US Women’s National Team (one of the best women’s soccer teams in the world, by the way) has been defeated in exhibition matches by high school boys? Specifically they lost to a U-15 club squad (so not just any boys, but they still lost to a bunch of high school freshmen at the end of the day, and these of course were not just any adult women either, they were among the best of the best).
The problem for Democrats is that the “just desegregate everything” approach, while at least logically consistent and morally defensible from the standpoint of fairness, would effectively mean the end of women in sports. It would be the end of Title IX. You want to talk about 80/20 issues, I would guess that support for Title IX is somewhere in that vicinity. If you came out openly against it, you’d get slaughtered even worse than the Democrats already did, and mostly by your own majority female political base.
There is no shelter for the Democrats on this issue, no clever political maneuver that can reconcile these positions. They are trying to have their cake and eat it too, and they just can’t. It is functionally the definition of insane to purport to be an advocate for female safety and privacy rights (which are cornerstones of the feminist movement) while at the same being totally cool with moving convicted male sex offenders into women’s prisons just because they suddenly claim to be women (yes, this really happens, and yes female prisoners have been sexually assaulted as a result).
The Democratic approach to this issue has been to be quietly all-in on fulfilling the most maximal demands of the TRAs while at the same time gaslighting advocates of female rights (ie TERFs) into acquiescence. They believe they can get away with this because the trans population is small enough that most voters don’t personally end up on the wrong end of their policies, and a lot of the one who do are socially marginalized (like female prisoners) or sufficiently vulnerable to social coercion to keep quiet. Too bad they went and pissed off JK Rowling, who is neither of those things. And it just gets worse for them from there. The more attention normal people pay to these issues, the worse the Democrats look. As a matter of political survival, the TRAs have to be crushed. No, Democrats do not need to turn against trans rights entirely. They just need to come out on the 80 side of the handful of prominent 80/20 issues (ie employ common sense) and be willing to use that public support to completely marginalize and crush the most unreasonable of the activists. No males in women’s prisons or rape/violence shelters. No males in women’s sports. No drugs or surgery for minors. Voila, you’ve just largely detoxified the whole thing. It wouldn’t end the bathroom wars, but that’s an area where I don’t think there’s an 80/20 position, and so it can be a live political issue without killing the Democrats.
Gender surgery on minors is very rare and when it does happen, is under the supervision and guidance of parents and doctors.
Last year, the Biden Education department was drafting rules on transgender athletic participation that would have empowered state and local authorities to ban transgender athletes from participating in certain sports based on age, competition level, and educational objective, including safety. While
these rules were not made final, that they were in progress shows that the Democrats were not, in fact, completely beholden to extremists on transgender issues.
We are facing an uncertain economic situation created by idiotic tariffs, broad erosion of the rule of
law, and potential devastation of the social safety net under the current administration.
How does it make sense to embrace all of that over a minor cultural issue involving 0.1% of the population?
The current administration is trying to cancel millions of dollars in federal aid to K-12 students in Maine because literally 2 students are participating in female sports. How does this make sense?
Don’t you gaslight me. It’s not nearly as rare as it should be.
Should be zero.
Bro. This unequivocally does not affect you or anyone you know. Unequivocally.
You have just as valid a position here as you do against space monsters from Neptune.
"Unequivocally" troons directly affect me and my life by actively degenerating the society I live in, plus they're really gross to look at and often exude very dark and negative energy
I’m not your bro and you don’t know the first thing about me, internet stranger. You’re turning me into a straw man, presumably because you don’t have any actual arguments.
The hell I don’t have any arguments.
You cannot remotely quantify the harm from trans kids getting to participate in PLAYGAMES too.
You do not know ANYONE who has been harmed by trans kids getting to participate in PLAYGAMES too.
You can only make up effete hypothetical fantasies in your imagination about trans kids participating in PLAYGAMES too.
You can’t quantify the harm.
You have no standing and zero credibility.
You’re straw manning me again. Since you don’t know me, you cannot say whom I know or do not know. You are making things up to try to disqualify me which is not an argument, it is ad hominem.
So why donate to charity? Other people suffering from sickness, starvation or poverty doesn't affect YOU
How common are such surgeries, then?
There are 42MM kids aged 10 to 18 in the US and a little over 1% of them identify as transgender in some way. The number of patients receiving gender affirming surgery is under 1200 per year, according to an article published in JAMA.
Some more thoughts on the general issue:
To whom you are attracted sexually is purely subjective and therefore cannot reasonably be contested by an outside observer.
Where you decide to live your life on a spectrum of superficial, stereotypical male to female attributes (and we all do) is also purely subjective and similarly cannot be questioned.
However, your biological sex reflects an objective reality which cannot be changed by your subjective personal view and futile attempts to do so can result in serious health impacts to you as well as harms to members of the sex you are impersonating (primarily women).
Others who are grounded in objective reality should never be forced to accept your subjective version of your actual biological sex.
Finally, it's past time for the LGB community to separate themselves from the trans activists who are trying to take away the rights of women to fairness in sports and to privacy and safety in their restrooms, locker rooms and prisons. They also advocate for the chemical and surgical mutilation of children many of whom would grow up gay.
Their actions are evil and the
understandable negative reaction to the harm they are causing is spilling over to innocent people who are just going about their business, marrying and leading their lives.
That's about the size of it. We'll said Sir.
Well said.
"To whom you are attracted sexually is purely subjective and therefore cannot reasonably be contested by an outside observer."
When I once voiced the heretical opinion that I'm not entirely convinced there is even such a thing as a "transgender person"*, I was surprised that an otherwise extremely intelligent and accomplished person (with a law degree, no less) responded "I suppose you don't think gay people exist either" as though it were a devastating counter argument. It really is a cult.
*To be clear, I think "transgender people" are *people* and are entitled to the full slate of human rights regardless of whether they think of themselves as a he, a she, or any other gender, and regardless of whether or not I see them as they see themselves.
The nice thing is that when my coworker (who is heterosexually married) tells me that she's "really bisexual," I don't have to make reference to her unfalsifiable bisexuality every time I refer to her with the potential punishment of losing my job if I do otherwise.
And personally I don't particularly need to know anything about anybody's sexual preferences, I just need to know what the name of their plus one is for the name cards.
I'm a lesbian and have worked at the same company for 3 years without ever mentioning it to my direct manager. It requires no accomodation in the workplace, and the only way it might impact my job at all would be that I could be taking the adoption/paternity parental leave and not the maternity birth leave someday.
With transition, people are often required to actively agree to/declare beliefs that none of them really hold, over and over, every single time they refer to a person.
Mostly excellent piece. Your policy proscription is dumb, but the analysis of the flaws in the arguments here is top-notch.
As a true centrist in the “god, both sides are awful” vein, I wish the dems could just shut up about some of these loser issues. Not even capitulate, just get out of their own way with them. I’m so sick of seeing them snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in order to play to the ultra-left wing Twitter crowd.
You are quite correct that my policy solutions are dumb. Just trying to take a small, honest piss into this river of nonsense.
Haha sorry I can never tell when people are being serious around this issue anymore or are just trying to highlight the absurdity of it.
I’m admittedly hypersensitive because I’m the dad of two girls and I dread the world I’m raising them in where they might get clobbered playing sports by some guy in a dress.
Oh go fuck yourself. I have two teen daughters. They’ve played sports year-round for going on a decade. No girls anywhere have been clobbered by boys. You are a liar, and a disingenuous one to boot.
These are PLAYGAMES we are talking about. Grow up.
I love this response. It’s such a wonderful encapsulation of OP’s original point about how utterly toxic this debate is, right down to the faux tough guy profanity thrown in.
At some point, the pro-trans people became completely indistinguishable from Tintania McGrath style parody accounts.
Really? These cases don’t exist? This thing that there a simple google search that yields dozens of articles of boys participating in girls sports and hurting their opponents is just a figment of my imagination? (And a figment of the imagination of the 80% of Americans on my side of this issue?) I guess we’re at the “it never happens” point of the argument, which will then move to “it hardly ever happens, why do you care?” Before reaching “it happens and it’s a good thing!”
At bottom, I’m stuck at my original point— do you like Trump? This kind of dumb bullshit response is how you get more Trump. Attacking people who could be your political allies as “liars” and “disingenuous,” rather than expressing curiosity or empathy for view points and experiences that differ from your own. Telling a dad expressing mildly concern for his daughter’s safety that he’s not welcome in your club is how you end up pushing him into the other club. But, cool you can keep virtue signaling to people on the internet.
Would it be beyond possibility that these aggressive responses are the work of ‘bad actors’ intent on fanning the flames? To turn a niche issue into a politically wining cause that distracts from awful GOP performance? The thought occurs to me frequently when I see the supporters of trans women (always women) go from 0-60 in 2secs.
Grok says that "Jake Gless" is 98% likely to be a bot, so in this case, bad actors would certainly appear to be operating. In a broader sense, I think a lot of it is an outgrowth of the "woke" tendency to care more about personal prestige than about any outcome. Being harsh and aggressive is the thing you're supposed to perform, so they perform it. They don't really care about the issue, so it doesn't matter to them that it turns everyone off.
We’re not lying about “trans” athletes because there’s no such thing.
We’re talking about men. William Thomas is a man. He’s not trans because nobody is. He belongs in men’s sports, or he can stay home.
End of story.
That’s obviously not a position with which everyone agrees, otherwise there would be no need for this discussion at all. I realize that you would prefer exactly that - no discussion - but it only takes one side to start an argument, and this one has most assuredly been started.
Well there is no such thing as "agreement" over biological sex. It's a simple fact, not an opinion, so there is no agreement to be had.
Sex cannot be changed and nobody has ever gone from male to female or vice versa. William Thomas is a male and he belongs in male sport. There is no way to agree your way out of that because a simple cheek swab test would prove it.
Women like me don't mind discussion. It's men who want to play women's sports who shut down debate and literally attack women in public, so I don't know who you think you're talking to. Go talk to the men who file lawsuits to get into women's prisons. I'm sure they'd be open to a discussion with you.
I probably won’t do that but thank you for the engagement.
Where do you think Schuyler Bailar should compete?
She should have never been given mutilative surgeries and testosterone as a way to deal with her intense self-hatred because "trans" does not exist. Strangely enough she kept her uterus (even after having her breasts removed) in case she wants kids because that's what real men do. If her "gender dysphoria" is so bad she can't tolerate having breasts, how can she tolerate having a female reproductive system and potentially pregnancy?
She's a female. She needs to stop pretending she's male and stop taking testosterone, and any sex-segregated activities means she's plays on female teams.
Also, after she tried the men's teams, she started coming in last during the meets when she would be first or second when she competed against other women. Isn't that odd?
This whole thing is a fraud.
I will never go back as long as they keep having these childish tantrums. I’m tired of them asserting that everyone else is some kind of stupid (or evil) if they don’t see it like they do. I won’t be blackmailed or bullied into submission on this.
“As stated above, the fiercest participants in this debate would mostly rather avoid the debate entirely, and just skip to the part where they win.”
Statements like this reveal that you are a newcomer to this topic and not very familiar with it. Women’s groups have been debating and fighting tooth and nail for about a decade, at times fighting simply for the right to debate without being shut down with threats of violence or other such hecklers veto. See for women Scotland, FairPlay for women, Women’s Liberation Front, Genspect and others. You not being aware of this activism does not make it nonexistent or mean gender critics are trying “skip to the part where they win.”
The “both sides are irrational” angle here is not accurate. It’s more like this: trans activists make a demand or claim, skeptics (often women) say “I have concerns with this demand I think we should discuss,” then TRAs say “I won’t debate my right to exist, there is no discussion to be had and I won’t permit a discussion to happen. This is war and you’re with us or against us.” Meanwhile the media mostly goes along with this and buries anyone critical of trans demands.
Eventually women’s rights activists said “ok, so you won’t tolerate a debate. You say this is war. Fine, we’ll settle this on the (legal and public opinion) battlefield ⚔️”
This is where you came in and see people fighting and say “wow both sides are so combative.”
There was one party in particular saying “this is not up for debate” and it was TRAs. Don’t both-sides this please.
That really wasn't the point I was trying to make. I am well aware that women's groups have been onto this for much longer than the general public, myself included. I wasn't trying to tone police anyone, or insist that folks just get along. I was pointing out - correctly, I think - that this debate isn't like debates over, say, immigration; where you've got die hards on both sides, plus a bunch of people staking out territory in the middle. Until about 5 minutes ago, this debate was *only* the two poles. No middle. No compromise. I'm not passing judgement on that, I'm just observing it, since it's rare in politics.
“Until about 5 minutes ago, this debate was *only* the two poles.” This is mostly true. Most people were paying no attention to the issue and only partisans really cared about it.
My point is that for feminists, you don’t see any moderates because they were forced into a radical position. Trying to stake out any position in the middle gets you absolutely trashed by trans activists. See Jesse Singhal for the canonical example of this, trying to car about a middle path and TRAs try to destroy him.
So while you’re right that there’s no middle, I think you’re missing the key point that there’s no middle because TRAs (primarily) wouldn’t allow a middle. Their “my way or the highway” approach forced people in the middle to either be silent or be prepared for total war.
I really don’t disagree with this. TERFs were not going around canceling people. Or telling people to kill themselves. Or telling people they should get raped. Or threatening to kill them. Or…
A different Dave 😎 thinks this:
Anyone who believes that men who think they are women should be allowed to compete against biological women in most sports or that they belong in women's restrooms, locker rooms and prisons is either cognitively impaired or intellectually dishonest. Unfortunately most Democrats now fall into one of those two categories.
Excellent article. Very good writer! Can I submit for consideration you be brave enough to write about a related topic…the censorship and banishment within the party itself. You spent quite a lot of time qualifying your POV. Why should you have to?
If the Dems don’t start admitting the culture they created - cancel culture, self-censorship and banishing dissent - they are doomed to fail. No healthy organization or relationship has these things.
Thank you! I think I sort of have written about what you’re describing, though not quite in this context.
By far and away the most popular piece I’ve published on here was this one, which is all about cancel culture, and the leftist will to ruthlessly crush even mild dissent. Hope you enjoy!
https://open.substack.com/pub/dennisonwrites/p/why-people-like-trump?r=38gm6o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
I appreciate your willingness to engage on this issue. It’s not an issue that most people approach with much nuance.
You accurately attack the fundamental unfairness of the Left’s attempts to promote Trans issues by shaming others or by passing regulations (whether organizational, state, national, or international) that are widely unpopular.
I posit a few counterpoints.
I’ve coached a number of youth sports seasons and before puberty, there’s not much difference between girls and boys ability (vast differences between the best boys and worst boys and best girls and worst girls). Then once puberty happens boys gain strength, speed, size, and agility advantages. I don’t see any reason to prohibit trans athletes who medically/hormonally transition before puberty to participate according to their gender identity.
If trans athletes are not able to compete according to their gender identity, it forces them to be out to compete. That’s a large burden on a child or teenager. It would be de facto exclusionary for most trans athletes.
I think it’s completely fair to make rules about participation for players who have gone through male puberty including exclusion. And while we wait for studies of the impact of medical/hormonal transitioning on athletes, when in doubt be more restrictive.
You highlighted a number of arguments made by trans activists that are disingenuous. You could have easily highlighted arguments made by those arguing to exclude trans participation in woman’s and girl’s sports. As a former volleyball player, it was easy to see that claims made about the San Jose volleyball player’s hitting power were exaggerated. She wasn’t hitting hard for a division 1 athlete. But the lawsuit required testimony showing a safety issue and so a safety issue had to be invented.
Oh, if Gavin Newsome thinks the CA rules on participation are unfair, he should have vetoed the law instead of waiting until now and putting the spotlight on a single high school athlete.
Thanks for writing this.
A relaxed approach toward desegregation for younger athletes is an excellent example of a compromise that I am no longer sure is possible due to the furious intensity of the debate. In fact, I think all of this is very reasonable, and would be broadly accepted if we all agreed that we want to maximally include people who were different without threatening competitive fairness. I just don't think enough of us agree that we should want that.
It may become a situation in which it depends on the locality.
Also, I among primary school age players I suspect most people would never know.
“furious intensity” of a NONEXISTENT PROBLEM
Girls and women aren’t a “gender identity”; they’re biological entities that differ from males.
Sports are segregated by sex.
A male, regardless of his gender identity, can indeed play sports with other males, even if he’s choosing to perform femininity.
If other males have a problem with that, take it up with them; it’s not girl’s and women’s problem to fix.
No trans identifying male will ever be a girl or a woman.
As soon as this empirical fact is accepted, we can all move on from this nonsense.
like you know man from woman when you were too lazy to ever grasp possessive versus plural
"I don’t see any reason to prohibit trans athletes who medically/hormonally transition before puberty to participate according to their gender identity."
It's not quite as simple as that, since whether such medical transition before puberty should even be happening is also a highly contested issue.
It is highly contested although I don’t know any polling about that particularly.
But that doesn’t have anything to do with sports.
Finally, someone bringing this truth back to the discussion: sports are inherently unfair. I was never any good at running events, swimming, or anything to do with a ball, and too heavy to jump too well, but when I was put on slalom skis, few kids kept up, locally - it’s so common for you to be locally dominant and then be a nothing at regional level. A family member became national champion for Greco-Roman wrestling. Our family tends towards a combination of fast and slow muscle that suits extended use of strength, but isn’t good for explosive (jumping) or, in combination with our thick frames, endurance (swimming, running). Some of us are really wide or deep and thin people can’t generate the same kind of acceleration or elevation in absolute height by rotating the hips from the mat as someone with hip BONES (not fat, actual bones of the hip) in 95th and up percentile. Take a pencil and turn it 45 degrees. How much higher is the elevated side now? Not much at all. Lay a book on the table and raise one edge by 45 degrees, see the difference? Try staying on top of my relative when he bucks and you lose contact with the mat! I’ve been the training dummy for skilled people so I have felt this myself, no greater teacher than experience. Good skills to have in psychiatry, too.
The different proportions, twitch fibers and neural capabilities mean that Michael Phelps couldn’t be beaten by almost anyone in the US for a good time, no matter how hard these other people trained or wanted to. And wasn’t beaten by anyone in the world for a number of competitions.
So little Timantha was never going to be a Real Winner, however you define it.
But the issue was never about sports, it was about policing what is a Real, Proper, Woman is (see: African athletes being disproportionately affected by the exclusion rules!). And, of course, making any minority rights issue a cultural war issue to attack ‘the left’. The same people are adamant that no child, no-one, really, gets to transition because their condition simply doesn’t exist, and they trigger the disgust reaction, so away from the public life you go.
And here in the trenches of psychiatry, we work with very, very, incomplete knowledge every day, and we try to find ways to help our patients, and some of those ways are not backed by any rigorous science, just our clinical experience, and that’s your garden variety depression (oh, it turns out there’s a thousand different manifestations of depression!) or anxiety. Although I practice in Finland, so obviously our processes are better for the patients, trans or not, than what you see in the US.
“When you try to tell a normie that there is no problem associated with biological males competing against biological females, and that if they think there is, it’s a consequence of their being stupid and hateful, you are giving them a kind of psychic gut punch. It doesn’t come across as an expression of tolerance, it comes across as a kiss-my-boot power flex.”
This is how I see not only this issue, but the entire trans phenomena, which exploded post 2012 with the rise of smartphones and social media, unlike the gays which I remember from before then. Any sort of “social justice” dogma comes off in this Orwellian manner to me, and my only response is going to be to break out a flamethrower. There is no reasoning with such nonsense, no point in engaging rationally.
As a survivor, thank you for having common sense and a backbone. Qualities that are obviously a rarity. This comments section is a great example of lack of common sense or knowledge that this movement was never grass roots, Martine Rothblat, Pritzker, Soros, Stryker anyone…? Men and women cheering on men(no matter how they “identify”) while they fracture the skull of their female opponent with crowds cheering about “inclusivity” while a woman is getting beaten to a pulp by a man. It’s a mens rights group in a thin shiny rainbow cloak . The emperor is naked, but everyone is claiming blindness. Imagine the egregious audacity a man has in order to tell a woman, that she is not oppressed because of her sex and if she doesn’t want men to beat her in sport, she should “try and train harder.” This comment section has all outed themselves as vehement men’s rights activists.
I sincerely thank you, Chuck.
You’re welcome, and you are right that the emperor is naked. However, you are wrong about MRAs. I was into MRA stuff for a year or so and it was about reforming divorce, improving due process , etc. Not putting men in women’s sports and restrooms lol. I think the outsiders to the MRA use that term to describe the manosphere more broadly, which includes a lot of other groups than the MRAs. Tbh I wasn’t even aware MRAs were still around lol.
If one advocates for men’s feelings/privileges/demands over female safety, that is the epitome of a men’s rights movement lol. Just stating facts here. Carry on.
The actual self identified MRAs did not push trans or gender “theory “ they had other issues they were unsuccessful in solving. Just stating the facts here.
Fake News from you. Essentially no one *anywhere* knows of any girl being harmed from trans kids getting to play PLAYGAMES too.
You are a disingenuous liar spreading bigotry.
I would agree that the self identified MRAs are not pushing this postmodernist ideology. I consider it to be the men’s rights movement of the left. For example, liberal feminism’s most sacred tenant is to protect male feelings/demands over female safety. The people spouting “men can be women” think that they are enlightened but it’s just the men’s demands movement of the left. They will “identify” as liberal feminists yet their end goal is destroying women’s sex based rights.
I guess I just find it strange and confusing that all members of your outgroup get labeled “MRAs.” I thought MRAs were defunct at this point tbh. But I’m not in your tribe, we just agree on what a woman is lmfao at what society has come to 😂
Good article, valid points, and as you alluded to, part of the reason rational discussion about this issue is so difficult is neither side has really worried too much about rational discussion this past decade or so this has been an "issue". A few points:
1. The reason this is an "issue" when 80% of Americans feel that it shouldn't be is that the 20% who feel differently overwhelmingly consist of our professional class. Yet another culture issue to make them distinct from the masses. Unfortunately for them, we do still live in a democracy, and this is one where they are clearly marking themselves out as not just different, but also straight up weird (and 'weird' is the modern polite term since as a class they do get to set the terms of the debate... at any other time in history, 'degenerate' would more likely be used). The professional class can make this an issue because they have society's microphone and control the non-democratic rule making that exists... but that then creates problems for them when voters get involved.
2. Separately from above, the professional class has spent the last 20 or so years propagandizing Americans to believe that there are no differences between men and women physically. We all know that isn't true, but when every movie and TV show with violence in it shows little women beating the fuck out of men in hand to hand.... it gets ingrained in the culture, and people start believing things that are patently untrue. A lot of women these days believe that women are as tough as men when it comes to certain things (rucking, fighting, etc), and for people who actually do those things they are clearly not. Over time the cumulative effects on women also tend to be greater. I have known women who could "hang with the boys" on certain things (like rucking, or wearing heavy gear for long periods of time).... but over a period of years, a much higher proportion of them have medboarded out.
3. A big part of this, as you also somewhat alluded to, has to do with male exclusionary places being male exclusionary. So it isn't just about men being in women's sports, but also women's locker rooms, prisons, bathrooms, etc. These are all political issues, and all occupy the same mental space for most Americans. An argument for one is, to a large extent, an argument for all. As much as men would like the Starship Troopers shower scene to be the future, for some reason women seem a bit uncomfortable with that... and men who have daughters and wives also generally are. Where are the lines drawn? I get why you focused on sports, but that isn't just an isolated issue.
4. Weight classes... not a bad idea, but not a fix I'm afraid. I've seen women fight men... a lot. Broken out by weight classes. The training is even. The weight is fairly even. I've seen a lot of men beat the fuck out of women. Men and women of even weight... the men are still faster, and hit a hell of a lot harder. They can also take punches a lot better. Men and women are just built different even if the weights are the same... and that matters in contact anything. If women are going to compete, and in the long-term survive, they need their own league.
By “professional class,” I assume you are referring to the college-educated, correct?
Generally I'd specify the "professional" or "institutional" class over "college educated." College educated people who work for large organizations/institutions or adjacent ones (or who are married to those who do) dominate this category... those outside of it generally less so, even if they have a degree.
And by opposite of this “professional class, you are implying that the lower nonreader 80% of US society are the midwits, dunnykroogs, and severely undereducated, correct?
Why do you fluff the undereducated as having anything on the people more educated?
I'm not even sure what your point is here, but I don't think you under stand what I'm saying at all, whichever side you fall in on.
It is relevant to our Democracy that those who work for large institutions are aligned on value judgement political issues, relevant that on many of these political issues they don't align with most Americans and EXTREMELY relevant that they are increasingly unwilling to brook any dissent.
Okay, back it up: What is your best example of a specific large institution that fails to align its values with the less-educated trumpees?
You are creating a strawman... read what I wrote, don't demand I defend something else. With your amazing grades and education you should be able to manage that, yes?
It’s never about the issue.
It’s always about the tyranny.
Every progressive (or conservative) point of view is worth considering and debating in a climate of grace and persuasion.
None are worth considering in a climate of bludgeoning and coercion.
The trans issue is rancid for more than just its innate fairness - it’s extraordinarily rancid because its activists and advocates have adopted a scorched earth, salt-the-ground attack even L Ron Hubbard would be impressed with. Trans activists gleefully destroy Harry Potter authors and Netflix comedians alike. Nothing graceful, attractive, or persuasive. Just brow beatings.
The message is now lost thanks to the messengers. The what matters, but the how, in this case, matters even more. This will be the story history writes of this issue.
You are the real victim, Lukas. So sorry the trannies happened to you.
1. I’m all for desegregating some but not all sports. It is indeed very weird that we segregate shooting or equestrian. I think you’re strawmanning liberals a little here by claiming that they don’t think men and women have difference in strength and speed - everyone I know recognizes this.
2. What about the fact that Olympians are often genetic freaks of nature? How different is it that Phelps has excess lung capacity and unusually long arms and that a trans woman who transitioned has lung capacity unusual for a woman? No trans woman who has done no transitioning has tried to participate in high level sports. No transwoman so far has been dominant in any sport the way many players like Serena etc have been.
3. Kids are particularly vulnerable and I think trans kids are enough in need of protection that I care more about inclusion than fairness there. This changes at higher sport levels but people who harass 8 or 10 year olds are kind of evil.
4. What the hell do we do with various intersex people? Overall how do we police this without being creepy?
My own position is somewhat close to yours - I have a draft I’m nervous to post too so I’ve thought this through in some detail. And I don’t think you’re evil or malicious :).
1. Agree on some sports being easier to desegregate than others. Don't agree about the straw man. If everyone really recognizes this, fewer should pretend they don't.
2. This one's tricky. Phelps is usually the example used, but even just Michael Jordan. There was no obvious, physical reason for him to be leagues better than any other player. He just was. I'm not sure this is useful in the trans debate, because genetic freak of naturism isn't a choice, whereas transitioning, then still wanting to compete, is. We have a higher tolerance for God/nature giving some players a leg up than when players appear to be giving it to themselves.
3. Without wishing to tread on the "trans kid" third rail, I think I agree. Also, biological advantage is less significant the younger you go. There's really no need to segregate t-ball in the first place.
4. No. F-ing. Idea. This is a really hard one, and it really bums me out that this has been folded into the much more rancorous debate over trans inclusion. People with DSDs have not chosen to have them, nor have they generally chosen their gender identity (which isn't even really the right framing for a person with a DSD). Telling a man with Kleinfelter that he isn't "really" a man would be wildly insulting. The Imane Khelif situation bothered me mightily, because it seemed totally plausible to me that Khelif, as far as she initially knew, was just an unusually strong girl. Then she finds out there's more going on, but what is she supposed to do? Many would say, she should have nobly quit, but I think that's pretty easy for observers to say and probably harder for her to just do. And I am deeply uncomfortable with internet commentators looking at folks with DSDs and just *deciding* whether they're male or female based on which is the most useful to their argument.
Actually, there have been trans Olympians. Laurel Hubbard won gold medals in several non-Olympic world weightlifting competitions before competing in the Olympics (where Laurel won no medals, but then again was also 42 years old, an absurdly late age for Olympic competition in weightlifting).
The question of Intersex athletes is also actually very difficult. To give on example, there was a controversy at the last Summer Olympics over two athletes in women’s boxing who are Intersex males. The particular condition they had (there are a whole spectrum of intersex conditions with widely varying effects on human phenotypes) gives them an outwardly normal female phenotype (even a vagina, albeit with no uterus attached), but they have internal testes and the significantly higher testosterone levels that come with them. Effectively, they’re “doping” relative to normal XX women. And IIRC it was the two of them who ended up in the gold medal match against each other. Is that fair? Or even safe for their female competition? I think that’s an extraordinarily difficult question in which both sides have some valid arguments.
In another example, it’s a relatively open secret that Intersex athletes dominate certain women’s sports categories like intermediate distance running. The famous case of Caster Semenya some years ago is illustrative but not isolated, and the Olympics has had a range of controversial policies around intersex athletes in women’s competitions. One reason they do is that prior to sex verification testing, many countries were quietly recruiting intersex athletes for their Olympic squads on purpose.
It’s very messy, and deserving of a serious debate.
You care more about inclusion and that's your prerogative. But it's not your right to sign away girls' right to play without boys you call trans kids. Both boys and girls learn a lot about socializing with their own sex through single-sex activities at early development stage. It is not your right to take that away from kids and parents who want that. Participation by someone of opposite sex always changes the group dynamics.. Set up a third mixed-sex group if that's important enough to you.
Nobody ever has the spine to answer this, but please identify the closest proximity incident to you wherein a girl was harmed by a trans kid getting to participate in PLAYGAMES too. Please name the girl and the distance in miles from your home residence.
You can’t do it—and neither can anyone else—because you’re all 100% full of shit. This is not a real issue. It exists entirely in your bigoted imaginations. Entirely.
Wow, this is completely idiotic. Many girls have been harmed after working their asses to achieve a goal, by dudes that choose to compete as girls. Just as others have been harmed by having to compete against athletes on steroids. If you have ever competed in team or individual sports you would understand how ridiculous your argument is.
dunnykroog says wat
You are the real bigot. You're a raging misogynist who's full of shit.
Nobody? Nobody? People have been giving the likes of you answers but you won't listen. Then you go around making accusations that no one would answer you.
Https//hecheated.org
Https//shewon.org
"Jake" is a bot. Don't bother.
And yet vast majority of Phelps’ records have been beaten. Do you want to have a guess at which sex have beaten those records?
What point do you think you’re making? Yes he is not absolutely dominant over many generations? But no trans woman has been even as dominant as he was. Or as Serena or even Venus was.
My point is no trans woman has dominated a woman’s sport yet so it’s hard to take the claim that they have an overwhelming advantage seriously.
Obviously men. Men have an overwhelming advantage over women in swimming all the lengths people do at the Olympics. Trans women do not seem to have the same overwhelming advantage but if there is enough data to convince a sports governing body otherwise I’m open to those specific bans.
Why does the bar have to be set at domination? Why do women and girls have to bend over backward forgoing and giving up their rights and opportunities while these men (or male bodied people if you prefer) won't make the slightest compromise? Can't you see how incredibly sexist you're being?
You talk as if men and "trans women" are two separate sexes. You can shut down that part of your brain and train your own mind to think that way. But you can't force the rest of us to be brainwashed. They're both males. Just because you redefined "men" and "women" doesn't mean everyone has to comply.
Even if one *is* inclined to set the bar at domination, that's still unsustainable. You simply cannot have a system that allows sport participation...until the athlete gets good, then they're out.
My point is that whatever Phelps’ advantages, they’re clearly well within the bounds of male capability - his physical advantages are not close to the differences between sexes. Phelps is always used as a strawperson and it does not stand up to logical scrutiny.
I don’t think fairness only matters if someone is dominating. Take Laurel Hubbard, for example. Prior to transition she was a relatively mediocre male lifter. She transitioned and was winning competitions, despite being far, far older than the majority of lifters. She got a place at the Olympics instead of an exceptional female lifter. Women’s sport shouldn’t be a second chance for mediocre males - males who would come nowhere near to those levels without transition. The integrity of women’s sport is important.
The scientists who’ve presented on this to various sporting bodies (Rugby, Swimming, Athletics) have shown that males do retain some advantage post-transition. It’s tough, I understand, but unless we desegregate male/female sport, I don’t see the point of them being separate at all if those categories don’t hold. Open/female categories would be absolutely fine. Everyone can take part.
“Women’s sport shouldn’t be a second chance for mediocre male” - I think it fair to have restrictions on professional sports by their governing body. To say there is unfair advantages for trans women to compete against other biological women seems reasonable too. I wouldn’t ever imply that someone transitioned just for competitive edge though and such language makes one’s argument dubious to being fair minded and in good faith.
I appreciate that my language is blunt. I was not suggesting that anyone chooses to transition to gain an advantage in sport. Rather - a side effect of transitioning is opportunities in sport that were otherwise not available, which necessarily took away opportunities for exceptional female athletes. It’s a minor point, but I think it does go to the integrity of women’s sport.
In sporting parlance: “yeah, nah”. I’m one of those people who cares about both sport and women’s rights. At the root of this issue is whether you believe women have a right to single-sex sport. If you don’t, and you think that men’s self-perception should be prioritised, then you will be looking for all sorts of compromises, all of which will be detrimental to female athletes in one way or another. Weight categories?! Seriously?! A 55kg man can lift magnitudes heavier than a 55kg woman. Men have much greater tackling, punching or hitting power and that’s not to mention women’s greater vulnerability to injury. The most obvious solution is not weight categories or quotas, it is the renaming of the men’s category as an open category, so that people with any identity can compete in it, while at the same time ringfencing the female category.
I appreciate that you mentioned trans-identified females; they truly will be excluded if they choose to take testosterone, so instead many don’t, they wait, they compete in the female category, and, if they choose to, medicalise later.
Also, if you use the term “cis” to describe natal women, you have to understand this is not a neutral term, this is ideological language. This descriptor has been thrust upon women without their consent, making women a sub-section of their own sex-class so as to accomodate and defend men as “women” too.
And women’s rights supporters are well and truly over this narrative of the “toxic” debate, with both sides being equally vituperative. Women and their allies have been deplatformed, cancelled, sacked, investigated, sued, deselected, assaulted, slandered and silenced thanks to the pushers of this fake civil rights movement.
Thanks for replying. Yes, both sides hate each others’ arguments, but I don’t hate anyone. However, if educational, cultural, media, government authorities etc. have told sex-realist women that they are bigots, and emboldened others to do the same, that’s really not both sides is it? I have never seen or heard anyone encourage physical violence against trans people at a women’s rights protest.
And, woman is a foundational word in our vocabulary that has been colonised by men; you don’t think it’s worth fighting about, but maybe that’s because you’re less affected by the redefinition. I’m also bored by the language war, but we didn’t start this.
And I do think the open category format is the only way to have maximal participation in sport.
"maybe that’s because you’re less affected by the redefinition" - absolutely this. I freely admit it. You're also right about the dimensions of the debate, and I maybe should have made more effort to point that out in my piece. I have never, for example, seen J.K. Rowling suggest that a person who disagreed with her should commit suicide or be raped. The reverse, however....
I really only raised the issue at all to explain my own cowardice in failing to write about this sooner. It wasn't to claim that both sides were equally responsible for the rancor.
Thanks David, I appreciate your openness in talking about this issue.
As to ‘cis,’ the problem is that just saying ‘woman’ isn’t neutral either. I realize you’d prefer that it were, and that until very recently, it unquestionably was. But it only takes one side to problematize language. That’s frustrating but it’s true. You find ‘cis’ alienating, which I respect. Others find ‘woman,’ with an implied “real” before it alienating. And while I really don’t respect that, I go along with it because my choice is to either go with the flow and hope my broader point is heard, or get bogged down in a language war that I have no interest in fighting. It’s lose-lose. It’s also boring as hell.
And sure, I hear what you’re saying about my both-sidesing this, but I don’t think I’m wrong. Both sides fucking hate each other. That your side has more cause to doesn’t refute that observation.
The bottom line, to me, is the amount of work and sacrifice athletes make to compete. For every little girl that decides she’s going to concentrate on swimming, basketball, softball and yes, fencing, there are parents that get up early in the morning to get them to practices. That drive all over the country for national meets and then to watch all those hard years of work, dedication and tears end when a man decides he wants to transition in college so he can compete as a woman is beyond unfair. This is where I draw the line. I don’t care if you decide to transition—-go for it. But stay out of women’s sports. If this is allowed, how many girls will give up their dreams because they see they’ll never achieve what a biological male will??
I absolutely see this. My suggestions were mostly tongue-in-cheek; "if there's really no difference, here's something we could try." I touch on the point you make here in my upcoming piece. John Oliver made fun of the organization, She Won, in his recent episode about trans women in sport for supposedly over counting the number of medals won unfairly by trans women. But that group's logic is consistent, even if some disagree with it. When team membership and/or achievement is finite, anything won by a trans competitor represents something taken away from a person for whom the category exists in the first place. Advocates for inclusion should at least be honest about this.
Couldn't get past this:
"I could not possibly care less if even the admittedly bad ones end up ruining something you love. Because it is not a thing that I love. I just don’t care."
It appears we agree on the general issue, but I'm not interested in reading the long-winded thoughts of someone on an issue that they don't actually give a shit about. Honestly, the hubris is breathtaking.
I suspect a lot of people who think TG women should get to play competitive, organized sports with women also don't give a shit about sports. They too should go the fuck away.
What do the vast majority of women who play competitive sports think? I bet if they didn't think they would get harassed by an obnoxious vocal minority of lunatics we'd find out 99% don't think it's fair either.
Finally, no sports league owes TG women anything. Want to be TG? Fine. That does not entitle you to everything else you want.
That’s perfectly reasonable, which is why I stated it up front. Although to clarify, I do care about the issue. I just care about its impact on the discourse and on the fortunes of large political movements more than I care about its impact on sport.
Great article! I am, however, a bit confused about the frame of the trans sports discussion, though.
Isn't the whole point of sports to facilitate interesting competition? I find it odd that the topic of trans sports is approached from the frame of fairness when, so long as interesting competition remains, what's the harm?
I don't really know if trans women have an advantage over cis women or not. Very frankly, I don't care if they do. Physical characteristics are determined randomly via a lottery of birth—the biological advantage Michael Phelps has over other men is unfair, just as the biological advantage a man has over a woman is unfair. In my view, the best reason Michael Phelps shouldn't've been disqualified from competing is simply because interesting competition is better facilitated with Phelps's inclusion.
I suppose insofar as the perception of fairness is important to audience enjoyment, we should care about fairness. However, I really don't think anyone would really care about an unfair advantage trans women have if it weren't the central battleground of the culture war.
Honestly, I don't know if the inclusion of trans women would be beneficial to facilitating interesting competition. However, it does seem to me that if anyone does know, it'd be sports authorities.
Why not just defer to sports authorities on this issue?
As for this argument:
"Why do you care? This basically never happens. Trans people are a tiny minority. Let it go."
I think you've missed the point of the argument. The point is threefold:
1) Trans issues are a distraction.
2) Political will is better allocated elsewhere. Every second Congress spends on transgender sports is a second that could've been spent giving people food or fixing the national debt.
3) Trans athletes have a minimal effect on fairness. This point is typically deployed in response to the Lady Ballers idea that guys are transitioning en masse to destroy women in basketball or something.
For a lot of reasons, I absolutely disagree with you about 'Why do you care?' That's just not credible coming from the same group of people who pushed this in the first place. If I wasn't supposed to care...why did you insist I care? Sure, it's a distraction, and sure, we have bigger fish to fry. It wasn't my idea to spend so much time frying this one.
I like your argument about interesting competition trumping fairness though. I'm not sure I agree with it, but it is at least honest. Fairness does not *need* to be our paramount concern in sport. My objection is to people claiming there's no issue of fairness when there definitely, obviously is.
Fair point. For the record, I don't really care about trans sports. I think trans people are such a small minority the left should just drop the issue in the interest of political pragmatism.
But in terms of why each side cares:
The reason the left cares about trans sports isn't because they care about fairness, it's because they think of trans sports as an issue in the culture war. The idea is that if the right wins on the issue of trans sports, the overton window shifts right, and the next targets will be other, more important accommodations.
I think this analysis is broadly correct. I doubt the right cares much about women's basketball—it's far more likely that they care about trans sports as a wedge issue. Since wedge issues are replaceable, it's plausible that trans sports is a useful political buffer zone. This was in fact probably the case a few years ago when the social climate was very woke.
However, given the polls you've cited, it's become an untenable position, and I think the left has drunk their own kool-aid in being so stubborn on this issue.
If we set aside political considerations for a moment though, I do think the cost-benefit analysis is still very marginally in favour of the "pro-trans" side. Since people aren't transitioning en masse to get a competitive edge, interesting competition remains intact. Further, it's probably more distracting than not if a trans woman were to compete with men in, say, boxing.
To conclude:
1. I think you're right that fairness would be marginally better if sports were segregated based on assigned sex.
2. I don't think fairness is a useful consideration, and that interesting competition would be marginally better if sports were segregated based on gender identity.
3. I think being "pro-trans" on sports a few years ago before it became a huge culture war thing was good.
4. I think now, given the current political climate, that it's better for the left to give up on trans sports.
Michael Phelps records have nearly all been broken. By males. So his “advantages” were clearly within the achievable bounds of elite male swimmers. We separate sport by sex (and in some sports, also by weight and disability) because that it is the single, biggest advantage-conferring factor. We know that males and females at the same level have very different performance outcomes.
When you say "elite male swimmers", you are making a highly relevant distinction. Those who broke Phelp's record likely had amazing genetics which gave them a huge advantage.
The point isn't contingent on Phelps having an insurmountable advantage over literally everyone else, the point is that many traits, such as genetics, are unfair, but we don't really care.
Like, competitive female swimmers are better than average male swimmers. Even something like your work ethic can be chalked up to genetics or upbringing so I find it odd that we are fixated on strict fairness in competition.
What really matters is interesting competition. As I illustrate in my reply to Dave, I think interesting competition is plausibly better preserved in segregating sports by gender identity.
I am also very skeptical of the idea that sex is a single advantage-conferring factor as opposed to multiple. For instance, various sports authorities are making distinctions along hormonal lines as opposed to chromosomal or morphological lines.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hormone-levels-are-being-used-to-discriminate-against-female-athletes/
Incredibly depressing that I had to scroll this far to find a legitimate reply that wasn’t loaded with fantasy and bigotry.
These are PLAYGAMES. Unequivocally. Good grief.