Democrats 'recalibrating' on trans and gender issues.

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/some-democrats-recalibrating-approach-to-transgender-issues

'Sports participation has become one of the main fronts in a political battle over transgender rights, although most Republican-controlled states have also implemented policies that affect a bigger slice of the population. There are bans on some gender-affirming health care for transgender young people and rules barring transgender people from using the bathrooms that match their gender identity in schools and occasionally other public places.

At least 25 states are now enforcing laws or policies banning transgender women and girls from competing in at least some women's and girls' sports and three others have adopted laws but have enforcement blocked by the courts.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld state laws barring transgender girls from school teams.'

A brief look at the state of play in the US.

Thanks for the link, I can't say it filled me with encouragement, there didn't seem to be a lot of re-calibrating going on. PBS is well captured so that might explain the slant and the outrage one-sidedness of the piece.

"Ohio Democratic gubernatorial nominee Amy Acton has taken a similar position, although she has drawn criticism from the left for adopting Trump's language after saying she opposed "boys playing in girls' sports."

Even calling children boys and girls is considered to be adopting Trump's language! 🤯.

I don't see how these muppets are going to come back to reality when that's their attitude. There's also a lot of them who have 'trans' in the family, so we're never going to hear the end of the 'trans' language.

The only hope I have in the US is that the medical gender industry will eventually collapse under the weight of negligence claims. If that occurs, I think the scandal could break the whole situation wide open. Until that happens, I think this whole, bogus “human rights” gravy train will continue.

Thanks Arabella. It’s revealing that sports is the key issue because it’s so ridiculously obvious that men have an advantage there. And yes, our other great hope is the insurance companies who are hopefully gearing up to kick the living shit out of the gender surgeons and their hospitals.

Looks like no one has women’s rights pegged as a vote winner.

When it was permitted, how many openly trans women competed for their nations in the Olympics and many of them won medals?

If you don't know, what answer would you expect if you are right about trans women's superiority, and what would you expect if you were wrong?

The UN did a report about two years ago that found about 890 women had been denied medals, trophies and places by men cheating and entering the women’s category. Obviously that’s a little dated now and I’m sure they won’t have captured all of them but it’s a good place to start. The website https://hecheated.org/ also gives details of men in women’s sports.

But frankly it doesn’t matter if it’s only one, because one is too many. Women’s sport is for women.

You might also be interested in the website https://boysvswomen.com/#/. It’s American and compares decent regional athletes who are boys. Boys. With women who are Olympians. Guess who wins?

HTH

As I'm sure we all know, this lukewarm posturing is (I think) testing the waters, since Democrats haven't a hope of winning the next Presidential election if they carry on with their batshittery stuff.

So it will be interesting to see if they mean it, if it will gain traction amongst Democrats, or if it is a means to an end, and all will be reversed if they get into the White House.

Yes, the article is biased against women's rights. Exactly why I found it heartening, tbh! Even with an anti-women bias, it noted the issue as one of import. It's progress.

American here. I agree it’s progress. The democrats are well aware that this issue cost them dearly in the last election and are trying to reduce the chances of that happening again. It’s not because they’ve genuinely changed their position.

What has changed is that the courts are upholding women’s rights in these cases.

It doesn't matter, female sports are for females only, if you let males into female sports it ceases to be female sport.
It's that simple, don't know why the few don't get it.

Right back at you, how many trans women winning medals would it take for you to say, hang on? Apart from which, forgetting about advantages they are in the wrong category.
imagine an adult wanting to compete against children, even if the adults had a learning disability.
or able bodied athletes competing in in the para Olympics. Wouldn’t matter who won, they are in a space not ment for them, get back in your lane.

Easiest way for Republicans to score a debate win in any potential campaign:

”If elected, would you permit men and boys to compete in women’s and girls’ sport?”

Of course, it’s also the easiest way for a Democrat candidate to score a debate win and possible votes too. Just a clear cut “No” to this question and the majority are with you.

As noted in the article, its the position of the majority. Did detect a certain uneasiness! Its a far less bullish piece than may have been published a year it two back.

Interesting to see people start to question the narrative.

We all know what happens then...

I live in Maine and Democrats here are pretty solid on transgirls in girls' sports. However, I've noticed a bit of wavering. High school sports are a much bigger deal here than they are in the UK - televised on local TV and so on - and also very important for the athletes concerned in college admissions and for scholarships. That makes it particularly galling when a male takes a scholarship that should have gone to a female.

Other states are beginning to see the light, but some are still solid on the trans issue - Illinois in particular, where the governor has a member of his family who is trans, and Washington State and Oregon also spring to mind. I think California is getting to be a bit less gung-ho on the issue, and most of the red states have put a stop to boys in girls' sports (which is one reason so many people think this is a Republican issue).

There is a good book by Kara Dansky called "The Reckoning - how the Democrats and the left betrayed women and girls" , and she writes as a life-long Democrat.

Frankly I can't see why more Democrats who are through the primary process don't come out more solidly against boys in girls' sports - all the polling shows that the great majority of the public would be behind them on that issue, and if those who don't want the vile orange President we have now to keep his iron grip on Congress, who else are they going to vote for?

Speaking for myself, as I have done voluntary work in the women's prison near me, it's the presence of a male inmate who has had (I think) a lawsuit brought against him by three of the women he's banged up with that I find particularly despicable. Look up Andrea Balcer, Maine, if you want the details.

Weak.

This is an issue that affects sports mostly at the lower levels. Which I think you know. The importance of the top levels of sport having appropriate policies is for visibility and so that they filter down consistently to organizations involved at lower tiers.

It's good to hear from the posters in the USA, (dispatches from the front lines as it were), the impression I get from what I see on social media, so not a reliable source, is that politically the Democrats are digging in on this issue simply because it's seen as taking a stand against Trump.
They've promoted this batshittery for so long and so wholeheartedly they can't backdown with out losing all credibility, they don't seem to realise they have no credibility to lose and won't get it back until they get back to reality.
It's encouraging to hear the tide is slowly turning though, it is the exposure in sport that shows without a doubt how unfair to girls and women this genderwang claptrap is.

@Mouldemort - check out https://boysvswomen.com/#/

The weakness is not answering the question and shifting the goalposts.

The question was pretty irrelevant, but at least two boxers who entered as women but were actually male won medals at the last Olympics.

Transwomen aren't "superior", they just have male advantage, the magnitude of which varies per sport.

I could equally call your question weak as it appears to lack knowledge of the history of IOC regulations. The evidence of male sporting advantage will not be found in Olympic medals history because until a rule change made in 2015 and formally announced in early 2016, trans women were only eligible to compete if they had underdone genital surgery which only a very small minority do. So my expectation is that very few transwomen were eligible for Rio and earlier games, leaving just Tokyo and Paris when we may have expected increased eligibility - and even that assumes that national selection bodies agreed with the policy.

The previous responses answer your question perfectly - there is ample evidence of male sporting advantage that justifies a separate female category. And if you're going to argue that transwomen have 'lost' this advantage - irrelevant. They are male and belong in the male sporting category. The women's sporting category is just that - a separate sporting category entirely, not a lower division of the men's category.

Also I note you only ask about 'openly' transwomen medal winners, do you not consider it a problem if a medal was one by a transwoman whose status was not known? Women still lose out in that scenario.

You would only consider the answer about lower level sports as 'shifting goalposts' if you only consider competing in the Olympics as participating in sports.

Thankfully, most athletes know better and see all levels of sports as competing in sports. Yes, even Parkrun.

Men with trans identities are not women. Opportunities created for the half the human race that are unambiguouously biologically female, in order to correct the oppression and reduced access and equality to the world caused by men, should not be commandeered by men to soothe their egos and idea that they wish they were the opposite sex.

It's not difficult.

Only a miniscule fraction of athletes are ever good enough to qualify for the Olympics. Since trans-identifying men are an even more miniscule fraction of all athletes there would hardly ever be any capable of winning an Olympic place, let alone a medal. The then 42 year-old trans-identifying weightlifter Laurel Hubbard proved that with his poor performance at the Tokyo Olympics, having deprived a female athlete of her chance to compete. In any case this is now just of historical interest, since it is being increasingly recognised that female sports are only for those born female, unless they have taken exogenous testosterone.

@Mouldemort check out: https://www.shewon.org/ 5176 reported and verified medals lost by women to men until 2024. Not the Olympics, but sports competitions more generally. Not exactly a tiny number.

From their website:
Please note: On the whole, we are greatly understating the number of cases where female athletes are displaced by men. We receive hundreds of submissions that we do not post because we cannot verify them. Many more cases are simply unreported.