Ocasio-Cortez vs Riley Gaines

The mocking of 5th position also denigrates the efforts of millions of American parents who are getting up at 4am, 6 days a week to take their child to swimming training. These parents are giving up weekends for swim meets - they know their child isn’t going ever going to be in top 10 in the USA. It mocks these families’ aspirations and efforts.

Whichever democrat “think tank” decided attacking Gaines was going to win over hearts and minds is out of touch.

Replace "trans girls" with the accurate term "boys" and see what nonsense AOC talks. However young, no male is any kind of "girl" and should not be competing in female sport. Male physical advantage over females begins in the womb and is turbocharged by puberty.

"this isn't Tumblr in 2016"

Indeed. The thing is white people have been playing identity politics since forever by advancing their own interests via exploitation of minorities that they conveniently pretend not to engage in. It only seems like a new development because:

"When your'e accustomed to privilege equality feels like oppression"….

I’m a natural leftie but AOC makes my blood boil. She is destroying the Democrats from within, how can she not see that?!

Come on now. You’re not trying hard enough to move past a fifth-rate argument.

But who’s making that happen? Men? When?
Who’s doing the risk assessments and public sector equality duty impact assessments? Men? When?

Perhaps if all the political power amassed by hyperbolic fear mongering about trans people was directed at widespread advocacy for meaningful changes in women's privacy that that might happen but until then you can expect nothing less but feckless changes that not only don't really have any impact improving most women's privacy but serve to increase their harassment particularly of gender non conforming women by the transvestigator police.

I'm afraid the tedious "she's white so we should ignore her opinion" bollocks probably isn't going to wash with many people here, this isn't Tumblr in 2016 and most people have realised that the distortion of intersectionality that is only used to shut people up isn't worth bothering with.

AOC's comments about Gaines finishing 5th have a grim resemblance to the hints made by others amongst the delusionally pro-trans lot that the only reason women don't perform as well in sport as men are that they aren't trying hard enough.

'her penis' 😂never gets old

If you can imagine that some women are uncomfortable changing in front of other women due to modesty or awkwardness or introverted natures or culturally related issues & feelings, then surely to goodness you can imagine how much worse it would be for them to be required to change in front of men?

Yes, safe and secure women-only and women-and-children only changing rooms would be great, if they ARE safe. And the same would be needed in separate, adjacent but SAFELY situated sections for men and men with their children.

But who’s making that happen? Men? When?

Who’s doing the risk assessments and public sector equality duty impact assessments? Men? When?

Meanwhile, men should not be in women’s changing rooms. The law says so.

She is.

You’d think someone who went from being a bartender to a congresswoman would show a bit more decorum. Her former bartender status made her an easy target for jokes. You’d think she’d have a little more empathy before denigrating another young woman like that. She must know how it feels.

It seems like her go-to tactic to shut down conversation.

Anyway, here’s a taste of what Riley Gaines has actually accomplished: setting records and winning golds.

Riley Gaines is a former collegiate swimmer who earned multiple records during her time at the University of Kentucky, including being a twelve-time NCAA All-American. Notably, she set both the SEC meet and conference record in the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 1:51.51 in 2022 and won gold in the 200-yard freestyle at the same championships with a time of 1:42.62.

Maybe Riley should ask AOC to make her a coffee, just a little cream.

Sorry yes,I'd forgotten May.

RG is protesting against TiMs in women’s sport, not sure there all the whataboutery came from 🤷‍♀️. A TiM in female swimming was her lived experience.

And she’s very very effective, hence the Democrat’s vitriol. Every time the “spat” is reported, it’s accompanied by a picture of LT next to Gaines, looking like the personification of male advantage in sport 😀.

ETA : and yes, her being mocked for being 5th in America makes those mocking her look very silly

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The point you are spectacularly missing is Riley Gaines' anger is actually being mocked not her swimming record. In the tradition of many a far right vitriolic shock jocks who are incentivised to bully minorities via hyperbolic degeneracy fear mongering & victimology tactics (see: The Nazis), RG has distinguished her self in this faux 'job'.

At the end of the day 0.5% of the population aren't anything to write home about in terms of women's displacement in sport.

If RG gave a fig about unfairness in women's sport she would focus her attentions on the lion's share that facilitates it: Poverty. Wealth inequality is a main contributor to the inaccessibility of women's sport. The great irony of bourgeoisie 'white women' complaining about unfairness in sport particularly in elite schools is that if it weren't for poverty restricting women of colour, they would hardly rate let alone place fifth…

You seem to be - to quote Riley Gaines - a misogynistic dunce.

Agree with this.

AOC is attacking RG because Gaines is very effective. Most Americans - including Democrats - don’t support trans identifying men in women and girls’ sport. In the 2023 Gallup poll 69% overall opposed this, with 55% of Democrats opposing (41% approved, rest didn't know). More democrats didn't want TiMs in female sport cf 2021.

AOC has managed to denigrate every school and college athlete who could only ever dream of being “only fifth” in the country and every mother and father of a daughter who swims.

My daughter used to swim competitively, the effects of male puberty on performance are indisputable and it shows how out of touch AOC is to suggest otherwise.

She’s tone-deaf on this issue.

Firstly, we don't know for a fact Lia Thomas 'waved her penis around'. Gaines' highly motivated testimony isn't exactly a smoking gun.

Secondly, many many women are uncomfortable stripping in front of strangers regardless of sex so if women's uncomfortableness is the standard then it should be applied consistently by providing changing cubicles.

Riley Gaines is alive an able to advocate for herself. She could leave the room. And she does deserve recognition for standing up Lia. She also has has the privilege of being white in the USA. If we are point scoring compared to Adriana she is an absolute winner. At what point was a man able to take a decision over the use of her body? I'll wait.

@Howseitgoin maybe you can answer my question from earlier, Polly doesn’t seem to have an answer

Adriana Smith was treated appallingly.
Riley Gaines being expected to strip in front of a man, while he was waving his penis around in the women’s changing room counts, in my book as being treated appallingly.
Their race is not relevant in terms of my belief both were treated appallingly.

if you think it’s fine for RG to be treated like this because she’s a blonde white woman, that sounds like a you problem

I appreciate you know what it feels like, and strongly identify with this powerlessness of position; but your projection on this thread is not doing you any good at all.

It’s ok to be emotional. It’s ok to have some talking time out there in the real world.

She is not pro women, she is anti trans. There is a difference. Educate yourself.

Exactly.

RG is merely a useful wedge as is gender critical ideology effectively acting as a women's gateway to the far right. She either doesn't care (because of the incentives) or doesn't understand the leopards eating faces party aren't about to do women any favours particularly because they blame them & birth control for the 'browning' of America. No second prizes for guessing how they intend to make up for the birth rate decline of white babies.

“I want to dive into an issue more deeply into why targeting trans girls is particularly problematic not just for trans girls but for all of us… Trans people represent 1% of the population and we have spent so many resources and time figuring out how to more finely exclude them… and I’ve started to realize that a lot of these proposals here involve invasion of privacy of all women.” More recently, in a House hearing on a Republican bill to ban trans people from sports, Ocasio-Cortez delivered a searing rebuke: “Republicans, who have voted consistently against the Violence Against Women Act, who have taken the rights of all women to have control over their own body, who as women are bleeding out in parking lots, now want to pretend today that they care about women. And why? To open up genital inspection on little girls across this country in the name of attacking trans girls. We have two words. Not today.”

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/aoc-to-anti-trans-swimmer-riley-gaines

Unlike RG, AOC knows exactly what time it is…

Give the racism a rest, you don't want to be a Jew or get murdered or chased or hated just for existing.
RG absolutely can be a feminist, no one owns the term. She's pro women. She has conservative values, as do I. The left don't own feminism or even support it right now ...