as a liberal, I don't see why other liberals aren't understanding that principles don't have to do with numbers, fringeness or popularity contests, *those* are the ideologies that already went out of style... if there were 1 single black person in America being treated as a slave, it would still be wrong -- likewise, based on the principle of fairness, in general, trans-women shouldn't participate in women's sports. And, Democrats are going to keep losing on this issue until they understand the principle.
Exactly! The Dems are not the ones who keep flogging this issue that affects an infinitesimally small part of the population. The GOP does it because it sows doubt in the minds of people whose overall priorities are better served by democratic policies.
Transwomen are women. Full stop. Transwomen are not men. There are ten (10) Trans athletes in the NCAA, out of 500,000! After two years of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) Transwomen lose muscle strength and bone density equal to that of cis-gender females. Transwomen aren't winning medals or harming cis-gender women in any way. It's just a ploy to call Transwomen "men." From 2007 - 2022 the Olympics allowed Trans people to participate. You know how many medalled? Exactly 0. The Republicans chose the most marginalized group of people to be their "boogeyman" in 2015 and have repeated lies about Trans people over and over and you bought into it. In 2024 the Trump campaign spent $200M on an anti-Trans ads (remember the Super Bowl?). Trans rights don't take away any rights from cis-gender women. Educated people like myself do not agree with you, Frau Katze.
That aside, I am not someone who gives a rat's ass if trans athletes compete against women. And bring 'em on if they want to compete against men. It is an infinitesimally small number, anyway. What the issue really does for the GOP is highlight something what was just a few years ago considered weird and perverse.
It is one thing to sanction public homosexual behavior. That has been at least marginally acceptable since the 1970's. But trans was always a bridge too far for almost everybody, even some homosexuals. Being force-fed it these days, and told people had to accept it as an equivalent lifestyle, made for a powerful backlash in 2024, and the gift that keeps on giving so long as Democrats won't backtrack on it.
Good ol Reagan style bigotry right here. "Force fed" to recognizing that a group of people exist and have existed since our earliest recorded history...you poor baby.
"Trans women" are gay men who have been scientifically altered. Period. Biology is finite, poor baby, and America isn't taking this force-feeding any longer.
You nailed it; spent initially $65 million running ads to “raise up the Dems against trans” and do a lot of other damage. Then added millions more as it created a anti-dem rally cry. I read they only cared that this “worked” against Dems. And they will drag out this tool when needed. A GOP political strategic ploy.
Thats obviously and factually wrong. There are dozens of permutations of chromosomes beyond XX and XY.
And, of course, you can be born XY but with female genetalia. And of course, there are men with XX chromosomes.
So, then, is your assertion that we need to do a chromosome test on everyone before we call them a woman or a man? And, then, what do we call people with XXY chromosomes?
This is a stupid thing for the public to be discussing, because its private medical information.
JVL said it really well last month: If trans women start ruining competitive in women's sports, we should start thinking about policy responses. But if no-one is getting hurt (and, lets face it, at this point, no one is getting hurt if a trans woman is the 2nd or 3rd best player on the 5th or 6th best team in the 8th or 9th best conference...) then why not just let that one girl run cross country in Maine?
Gender is genetically more complicated than 8th grade biology. Beyond the different chromosome pairings, there are different epigenetic manifestations from genes that exist on chromosomes that aren't on the 23rd pair (i.e., the "sex chromosomes"). Some of these are pretty well understood, like the XY folks with Swyer syndrome who develop a uterus, fallopian tubes, vagina, etc.) and other aspects aren't yet fully understood, like XY folks who develop a penis but psychologically flourish with super low levels of testosterone (which in cis-gender men is generally psychologically debilitating).
Hang on. I’m not a cis-gendered woman. I’m a woman. That the language that throws people off. I don’t have any problem with trans people, but dot label me.
You are definitely cis-gendered. That's not labeling you any more than saying that you're homo sapiens sapiens is labeling you. It's a scientific description of what you are.
So here's the problem with that line of thinking: it's a lie. Trans people make up 0.5% of the population. There are less than 100 trans athletes currently in sports at the college level, and none at the professional level. But even more than that, we just need to look at how the right actually uses that issue.
For example, the Algerian boxer, who IS a woman. She's intersex, but legally a woman, and the right wing theocratic dictatorship of Algeria is not a woke pro-trans place. Yet the right made her the poster of their anti-trans agenda.
This past week, they made that one female fencer the focus of their anti-trans argument, except the rules haven't been changed since the 1970s, and also it's intergender.
The problem with the argument of 'keeping men out of women's sports' is that there are no men in women's sports. Trans women are not winning championships in the WNBA, they're not taking over softball, they're not defeating women in soccer or any other sport. Even in the most high profile case of that one swimmer, the trans person didn't win! They lost to a woman!
But also, there's no argument that trans men are threatening to men's sports like say, men's gymnastics. Because they would be, if this was an issue. Why? Because there are events that men physically can't do that women can, due to flexibility differences. But again, no one cares about that.
Which is that MEN come into women's bathrooms and demand proof of your sex because you must now fit a specific profile to be considered woman enough.
The problem you have is that you've taken a thing which is barely happening, and you've used it to ensnare yourself and lots of women into a system which now treats their sex as something to be inspected by any man who deems them to be unfeminine.
So forgive me, but I don't believe you care about women. I think you care about what the definition of women is, and who counts. Those are different things.
I’m very familiar with this topic. Trans are 1% of the population. Look it up (I just did).
The Algerian boxer is believed to be like Caster Semenya, who is XY with an inborn hormone irregularity called 5-ARD. These people are all XY but the hormone problem causes them to be born with internal male testes and are this mistaken for girls. But when the child reaches puberty he/she develops male strength.
They are more sympathetic than someone like Lia Thomas (an ordinary XY) but should still not be competing against XXs.
This discussion is all well and good, but there is NO WAY it could break through to the average voter. The bottom line is that Democrats need to agree to a simple message on this issue.
No, they don’t, and they shouldn’t. What happened to Dems needing to be authentic? Now we’re saying they all need to pretend to agree on a stupid niche issue that the majority of voters never stand to encounter or be impacted by in their entire lives?
They can bring perspective to the conversation, and if they can’t learn how to make their case and communicate it effectively, they deserve to fail, and frankly so does the American experiment. I hate this argument that democrats must be the reactionary party simply because they’re atrocious at messaging and communicating their ideas. That’s the damn job. A politician who is incapable of persuading people needs to find a new line of work.
It’s not that hard. The government should not be legislating the type of issues that are uncommon enough to be handled with sensitivity and dignity on a case by case basis. I thought republicans used to be against the nanny state, or at least they pretended to be.
These issues are instigated by the right to divide and us up and distract us from their failures. Trans people aren’t the reason Americans aren’t prospering, the billionaire class is. The unprecedented level of corruption from the Trump regime on behalf of the billionaire class has only made life worse for all Americans. We can disagree on certain cultural and social norms, as we always have and always will in a free society, but we cannot continue to ignore the corruption, greed, and self-enrichment of the ultra wealthy at the expense of those who work for a living.
The same way Elon Musk and his goons kept hypnotically repeating the phrase “waste, fraud, and abuse” to the point where MAGA was repeating it in exactly that order like brainwashed lemmings, democrats should be banging the drum on corruption, greed, and self-enrichment. They need to take control of the narrative that this is normal. It’s not normal. As soon as voters start to feel the pain of his incompetence and reckless, destructive actions, they will have a much harder time accepting that the level of corruption is the same. Trans issues might work to rile people up during prosperous times, but when people are losing their jobs, 401ks, homes, health insurance, and savings, they won’t have the mental capacity to care that somewhere in America, a 12 year old with a Y chromosome got to play soccer on the girl’s team.
Believed by who, exactly? There is absolutely no proof that Imane Khelif is biologically male and the rumor that she was could have gotten her killed in her home country. You might think you’re standing up for women, but all you’ve managed to do is set us up for “bathroom checks” by men if we don’t happen to be sufficiently feminine. No woman should face harassment because of what someone “believes” she is. The commenter above you already dropped multiple links proving that this is indeed the consequence.
You are citing a source whose entire platform is a self-serving crusade about “gender ideology” and is not arguing in good faith. Again, there is NO PROOF that Khelif is a man. None. This is disinformation and right wing propaganda.
Go look at a photo of Khelif. That’s one muscular looking woman. And no, there’s no proof because Khelif refused genetic testing. Why would that be, I wonder? Something to hide?
So now we are policing how women are supposed to look? Yikes.
There is no proof for the same reason there is no proof of gender for any other boxing athlete: it’s none of your business, and she isn’t obligated to meet your approval. The IOC has stated she met the criteria for participation.
The Olympics allows specific sports to handle this issue. For swimming, Lia Thomas was not allowed to compete in the female category. Boxing had different rules.
You should look these things up before you post ignorant comments. The IOC requires that boxers passports be marked as 'Female'. Algeria isn't exactly in the practice of changing passports.
She was obviously born female...and yet here you are trying to claim that she's a case of trans women in sports.
Which should tell every reasonable person everything they need to know about the issue.
(Side note: Lia Thomas' personal best isn't even close to a qualifying time for the Olympics, again, which kind of shows that even in this case, trans women don't have any particular advantage over cis women...SMH)
Do you not know muscular women? Try going to a gym where women box...every single one of them looks like Khelif.
But that goes to the heart of the anti-trans argument: The same assumptions you are making about a persons most private information are base entirely on you not thinking she looks 'feminine' enough.
She's also lost dozens of bouts. So even if she was trans (she's not) then she doesn't appear to have any meaningful advantage over her competition that regularly beats her.
She DID submit to a chromosomal test & was disqualified from the Russian controlled IBA but it's unclear why. No wonder she chose not to submit to additional tests...but its interesting that you are on here spouting Russian propaganda...It makes one wonder.
you have absolutely no proof that she does or does not know what chromosomes she carries. absence of evidence does not prove an alternative claim, not to mention that publication of a genetic test is incredibly invasive! I don't blame her for not taking it, I wouldn't either. It's also not necessary, since, as the commenter above has already pointed out to you, the IOC and related governing bodies within the sport have already determined that she was eligible to compete. you are making intellectually dishonest arguments here in order to justify your bigotry
God I wish I could bookmark this comment. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. it’s so infuriating to see women being duped into believing this nonsense. Any time a bunch of republican men show up to say they’re there to protect women, we should all be more than skeptical.
There are many educated people who do not think it’s fair to WOMEN to permit males to compete in their sports events.
This is a prime example of a fringe issue. It’s going out of style too, because it interferes with WOMEN’s rights.
as a liberal, I don't see why other liberals aren't understanding that principles don't have to do with numbers, fringeness or popularity contests, *those* are the ideologies that already went out of style... if there were 1 single black person in America being treated as a slave, it would still be wrong -- likewise, based on the principle of fairness, in general, trans-women shouldn't participate in women's sports. And, Democrats are going to keep losing on this issue until they understand the principle.
Yes it’s a matter of principle and fairness.
How many trans women do you personally know playing sports?
Exactly! The Dems are not the ones who keep flogging this issue that affects an infinitesimally small part of the population. The GOP does it because it sows doubt in the minds of people whose overall priorities are better served by democratic policies.
Transwomen are women. Full stop. Transwomen are not men. There are ten (10) Trans athletes in the NCAA, out of 500,000! After two years of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) Transwomen lose muscle strength and bone density equal to that of cis-gender females. Transwomen aren't winning medals or harming cis-gender women in any way. It's just a ploy to call Transwomen "men." From 2007 - 2022 the Olympics allowed Trans people to participate. You know how many medalled? Exactly 0. The Republicans chose the most marginalized group of people to be their "boogeyman" in 2015 and have repeated lies about Trans people over and over and you bought into it. In 2024 the Trump campaign spent $200M on an anti-Trans ads (remember the Super Bowl?). Trans rights don't take away any rights from cis-gender women. Educated people like myself do not agree with you, Frau Katze.
We must protect all vulnerable people from being targeted. We protect the dignity of human beings.
Well, they were born men, so,...
That aside, I am not someone who gives a rat's ass if trans athletes compete against women. And bring 'em on if they want to compete against men. It is an infinitesimally small number, anyway. What the issue really does for the GOP is highlight something what was just a few years ago considered weird and perverse.
It is one thing to sanction public homosexual behavior. That has been at least marginally acceptable since the 1970's. But trans was always a bridge too far for almost everybody, even some homosexuals. Being force-fed it these days, and told people had to accept it as an equivalent lifestyle, made for a powerful backlash in 2024, and the gift that keeps on giving so long as Democrats won't backtrack on it.
Good ol Reagan style bigotry right here. "Force fed" to recognizing that a group of people exist and have existed since our earliest recorded history...you poor baby.
I know this is old, but I just saw it.
"Trans women" are gay men who have been scientifically altered. Period. Biology is finite, poor baby, and America isn't taking this force-feeding any longer.
I mean, you can say that and follow it up with "period," but that doesn't make your bigoted ass correct.
GTH!
This thread is going way too deep into the weeds. That turns off many average voters.
Average voters are not reading the comments section of The Bulwark so I think we are ok.
You nailed it; spent initially $65 million running ads to “raise up the Dems against trans” and do a lot of other damage. Then added millions more as it created a anti-dem rally cry. I read they only cared that this “worked” against Dems. And they will drag out this tool when needed. A GOP political strategic ploy.
Trans women are XY, males. That cannot be changed.
Thats obviously and factually wrong. There are dozens of permutations of chromosomes beyond XX and XY.
And, of course, you can be born XY but with female genetalia. And of course, there are men with XX chromosomes.
So, then, is your assertion that we need to do a chromosome test on everyone before we call them a woman or a man? And, then, what do we call people with XXY chromosomes?
This is a stupid thing for the public to be discussing, because its private medical information.
JVL said it really well last month: If trans women start ruining competitive in women's sports, we should start thinking about policy responses. But if no-one is getting hurt (and, lets face it, at this point, no one is getting hurt if a trans woman is the 2nd or 3rd best player on the 5th or 6th best team in the 8th or 9th best conference...) then why not just let that one girl run cross country in Maine?
If you have a Y chromosome you’re male.
Males should not be permitted to compete in the female category.
Progress is being made. Lia Thomas was not permitted to compete in last year’s Olympics.
This is a classic losing issue for Dems.
Gender is genetically more complicated than 8th grade biology. Beyond the different chromosome pairings, there are different epigenetic manifestations from genes that exist on chromosomes that aren't on the 23rd pair (i.e., the "sex chromosomes"). Some of these are pretty well understood, like the XY folks with Swyer syndrome who develop a uterus, fallopian tubes, vagina, etc.) and other aspects aren't yet fully understood, like XY folks who develop a penis but psychologically flourish with super low levels of testosterone (which in cis-gender men is generally psychologically debilitating).
Hang on. I’m not a cis-gendered woman. I’m a woman. That the language that throws people off. I don’t have any problem with trans people, but dot label me.
You are definitely cis-gendered. That's not labeling you any more than saying that you're homo sapiens sapiens is labeling you. It's a scientific description of what you are.
So here's the problem with that line of thinking: it's a lie. Trans people make up 0.5% of the population. There are less than 100 trans athletes currently in sports at the college level, and none at the professional level. But even more than that, we just need to look at how the right actually uses that issue.
For example, the Algerian boxer, who IS a woman. She's intersex, but legally a woman, and the right wing theocratic dictatorship of Algeria is not a woke pro-trans place. Yet the right made her the poster of their anti-trans agenda.
This past week, they made that one female fencer the focus of their anti-trans argument, except the rules haven't been changed since the 1970s, and also it's intergender.
The problem with the argument of 'keeping men out of women's sports' is that there are no men in women's sports. Trans women are not winning championships in the WNBA, they're not taking over softball, they're not defeating women in soccer or any other sport. Even in the most high profile case of that one swimmer, the trans person didn't win! They lost to a woman!
But also, there's no argument that trans men are threatening to men's sports like say, men's gymnastics. Because they would be, if this was an issue. Why? Because there are events that men physically can't do that women can, due to flexibility differences. But again, no one cares about that.
But what it DOES do is enable stuff like this: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trans-transgender-public-bathrooms-gender-identity-nonbinary_n_67bde68de4b0659288fe1966/amp
and this:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/07/metro/woman-accused-of-being-man-in-womens-bathroom-boston-hotel/
Which is that MEN come into women's bathrooms and demand proof of your sex because you must now fit a specific profile to be considered woman enough.
The problem you have is that you've taken a thing which is barely happening, and you've used it to ensnare yourself and lots of women into a system which now treats their sex as something to be inspected by any man who deems them to be unfeminine.
So forgive me, but I don't believe you care about women. I think you care about what the definition of women is, and who counts. Those are different things.
I’m very familiar with this topic. Trans are 1% of the population. Look it up (I just did).
The Algerian boxer is believed to be like Caster Semenya, who is XY with an inborn hormone irregularity called 5-ARD. These people are all XY but the hormone problem causes them to be born with internal male testes and are this mistaken for girls. But when the child reaches puberty he/she develops male strength.
They are more sympathetic than someone like Lia Thomas (an ordinary XY) but should still not be competing against XXs.
It’s not fair to women.
https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/fact-vs-fiction-olympic-boxer-imane
This discussion is all well and good, but there is NO WAY it could break through to the average voter. The bottom line is that Democrats need to agree to a simple message on this issue.
No, they don’t, and they shouldn’t. What happened to Dems needing to be authentic? Now we’re saying they all need to pretend to agree on a stupid niche issue that the majority of voters never stand to encounter or be impacted by in their entire lives?
They can bring perspective to the conversation, and if they can’t learn how to make their case and communicate it effectively, they deserve to fail, and frankly so does the American experiment. I hate this argument that democrats must be the reactionary party simply because they’re atrocious at messaging and communicating their ideas. That’s the damn job. A politician who is incapable of persuading people needs to find a new line of work.
It’s not that hard. The government should not be legislating the type of issues that are uncommon enough to be handled with sensitivity and dignity on a case by case basis. I thought republicans used to be against the nanny state, or at least they pretended to be.
These issues are instigated by the right to divide and us up and distract us from their failures. Trans people aren’t the reason Americans aren’t prospering, the billionaire class is. The unprecedented level of corruption from the Trump regime on behalf of the billionaire class has only made life worse for all Americans. We can disagree on certain cultural and social norms, as we always have and always will in a free society, but we cannot continue to ignore the corruption, greed, and self-enrichment of the ultra wealthy at the expense of those who work for a living.
The same way Elon Musk and his goons kept hypnotically repeating the phrase “waste, fraud, and abuse” to the point where MAGA was repeating it in exactly that order like brainwashed lemmings, democrats should be banging the drum on corruption, greed, and self-enrichment. They need to take control of the narrative that this is normal. It’s not normal. As soon as voters start to feel the pain of his incompetence and reckless, destructive actions, they will have a much harder time accepting that the level of corruption is the same. Trans issues might work to rile people up during prosperous times, but when people are losing their jobs, 401ks, homes, health insurance, and savings, they won’t have the mental capacity to care that somewhere in America, a 12 year old with a Y chromosome got to play soccer on the girl’s team.
And the simple message is: no men in women’s sports. At least not obvious ones like Lia Thomas.
Believed by who, exactly? There is absolutely no proof that Imane Khelif is biologically male and the rumor that she was could have gotten her killed in her home country. You might think you’re standing up for women, but all you’ve managed to do is set us up for “bathroom checks” by men if we don’t happen to be sufficiently feminine. No woman should face harassment because of what someone “believes” she is. The commenter above you already dropped multiple links proving that this is indeed the consequence.
You are citing a source whose entire platform is a self-serving crusade about “gender ideology” and is not arguing in good faith. Again, there is NO PROOF that Khelif is a man. None. This is disinformation and right wing propaganda.
Go look at a photo of Khelif. That’s one muscular looking woman. And no, there’s no proof because Khelif refused genetic testing. Why would that be, I wonder? Something to hide?
This is like saying Ronda Rousey is a man because she has a well defined musculature.
So now we are policing how women are supposed to look? Yikes.
There is no proof for the same reason there is no proof of gender for any other boxing athlete: it’s none of your business, and she isn’t obligated to meet your approval. The IOC has stated she met the criteria for participation.
The Olympics allows specific sports to handle this issue. For swimming, Lia Thomas was not allowed to compete in the female category. Boxing had different rules.
You should look these things up before you post ignorant comments. The IOC requires that boxers passports be marked as 'Female'. Algeria isn't exactly in the practice of changing passports.
She was obviously born female...and yet here you are trying to claim that she's a case of trans women in sports.
Which should tell every reasonable person everything they need to know about the issue.
(Side note: Lia Thomas' personal best isn't even close to a qualifying time for the Olympics, again, which kind of shows that even in this case, trans women don't have any particular advantage over cis women...SMH)
And? She was still eligible.
Boxing was less fussy, going by passport only.
Okay. She’s still eligible. So there is no need to get tested just to satisfy you. I wouldn’t do the test either.
It’s not just me. There are huge numbers of women who agree with me.
Do you not know muscular women? Try going to a gym where women box...every single one of them looks like Khelif.
But that goes to the heart of the anti-trans argument: The same assumptions you are making about a persons most private information are base entirely on you not thinking she looks 'feminine' enough.
She's also lost dozens of bouts. So even if she was trans (she's not) then she doesn't appear to have any meaningful advantage over her competition that regularly beats her.
All she had to do was submit genetic test results. She would not do it, suggesting she knows she’s not XX.
She DID submit to a chromosomal test & was disqualified from the Russian controlled IBA but it's unclear why. No wonder she chose not to submit to additional tests...but its interesting that you are on here spouting Russian propaganda...It makes one wonder.
Take a hike.
you have absolutely no proof that she does or does not know what chromosomes she carries. absence of evidence does not prove an alternative claim, not to mention that publication of a genetic test is incredibly invasive! I don't blame her for not taking it, I wouldn't either. It's also not necessary, since, as the commenter above has already pointed out to you, the IOC and related governing bodies within the sport have already determined that she was eligible to compete. you are making intellectually dishonest arguments here in order to justify your bigotry
Her own home country issued her the female passport that allowed her to compete in the Olympics as female.
Are we to assume that Algeria has gone woke and is issuing female passports to trans women?
SMH
God I wish I could bookmark this comment. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. it’s so infuriating to see women being duped into believing this nonsense. Any time a bunch of republican men show up to say they’re there to protect women, we should all be more than skeptical.
Read my response to Silver Symposium. I have not been duped at all.
To the contrary, your replies have confirmed you have been duped.
Keep banging on this losing issue, keep losing elections.
If we have to go along mindlessly with something that is wrong, then we’ve lost anyway.
Explain to me again why letting Lia Thomas compete against women is fair.
This!
Read my response to Silver Symposium. He (?) is wrong about me.