As states continue to pass laws that dehumanize and endanger transgender kids, the country’s most influential newspapers have not met the challenge of covering the issue. Across the country, 36 states have introduced or passed 127 bills that discriminate against trans kids, including barring trans kids from playing on the sports team that corresponds with their gender, and criminalizing or impeding providing gender-affirming healthcare for them.
The right-wing movement behind these bills has tried to frame the story as a political debate over science and protecting the vulnerable—in the case of the sports bills, the vulnerable cisgender girls who would supposedly be harmed by competing with and against transgender girls; in the case of the bills prohibiting gender-affirming healthcare, the vulnerable trans children who might make the “wrong” decisions about their bodies.
The emphasis in this Washington Post profile (3/16/21) was on Chloe Clark and not on the lawmakers who deny her right to exist.
Instead of centering trans voices in coverage of these bills that target them, journalists at the New York Times and Washington Post have tended to cover the story as primarily one of political debate, with real-life impacts sequestered into human interest stories in which the political news is secondary, or relegated to a paragraph or two buried under piles of politicians, scientists and transphobes debating whether trans people should be denied basic rights.
For instance, the Washington Post ran a front-page feature (3/16/21) that profiled a transgender teen who “had spoken out on her own behalf, even as conservative legislators in Missouri waged a fight to criminalize treatments for trans kids like her.” Despite the headline’s framing (“A Transgender Girl Struggles to Find Her Voice as Lawmakers Attack Her Right to Exist”), the piece was primarily a human interest piece—a sensitive, empathetic profile that included only a few brief references to the anti-trans campaign and its impact on her life.
Meanwhile, the Post‘s most in-depth and prominent article centered on the anti-trans campaign came in its sports section (4/15/21), under the headline, “The Fight for the Future of Transgender Athletes.” Who gets to set the framework for that fight in the article? Not the people at its center. Reporter Will Hobson writes that “the issue of transgender athletes has become the most vexing, emotionally charged debate in global sports.”
A Washington Post sports feature (4/15/21) explored what advocates called a “science-based compromise between two extremes: right-wing politicians seeking wholesale bans of transgender athletes and transgender activists who argue for full inclusion.”
Look at how Hobson defines “the issue of transgender athletes”: not as an issue confronting transgender athletes, who are under attack in more than half of the states in this country, but one posed by them. Hobson implies that what’s most important in this story is that it’s “vexing,” not to trans people, but to those who are forced to deal with their existence. Under that definition of the problem—the same one used by the right-wing activists doing the attacking, and based primarily on interviews with cisgender “experts”—Hobson’s piece concludes that there simply may be no fair solution.
“It may prove impossible for schools and sports organizations to craft policies that are both fair to all female athletes and fully inclusive of transgender girls and women,” he writes. In other words, inclusion of trans girls may be fundamentally unfair to cis girls.
In effect, this cedes the framework to the right, setting the issue up as a debate, rather than a story about trans people’s (and, more specifically, trans kids’) right to bodily autonomy and self-determination.
It’s an approach to coverage entirely in line with that concerning another battle over bodily autonomy in this country: abortion. (Not coincidentally, right-wing legislators have also introduced an unprecedented number of state-level abortion restrictions this year.) As Janine Jackson (FAIR.org, 1/29/16) has argued, reproductive rights are typically presented as political controversies or pawns in the “culture war,” rather than as issues of women’s health, tilting the playing field from the outset in favor of the right. In both cases, those not targeted by the policies—men in the case of reproductive rights, and in the case of trans rights, cisgender people—get most of the quotes and most of the bylines.
For trans people, the outnumbering tends to be even worse. While there are countless outstanding trans journalists, very few have been hired by major news outlets, where their perspectives and access to the trans community would go a long way to providing more fair coverage. And trans sources continue to be outnumbered by cisgender sources in nearly every story about trans issues, too often reserved for adding “color” to a story rather than treated as experts. As the Trans Journalist Association advises:
When reporting a story about trans issues, trans people should be interviewed and quoted as experts, not just subjects. Trans people are the experts on trans lives and experiences.
Of 17 sources quoted in Hobson’s Post piece, three were identified as current or former transgender athletes. One was not interviewed, only briefly quoted. At least three cisgender former athletes were also quoted, plus a dizzying array of experts: endocrinologists, a cultural anthropologist, lawyers and a psychiatrist.
The New York Times (8/18/20) referred to inclusion of trans girls in athletics as “decid[ing]to split high school athletes by gender identity.”
The New York Times ran a remarkably similar story (8/18/20) highlighting the supposed intractability of the sports issue under the headline, “Who Should Compete in Women’s Sports? There Are ‘Two Almost Irreconcilable Positions.’” It’s telling that the source quoted in the headline—cisgender geneticist Eric Vilain—was previously published on the Times op-ed page (6/18/12) on the issue of gender testing for sports, and began his argument by claiming that we live “in times of extreme political correctness infiltrating almost every societal topic.”
Vilain, once an ally to intersex activists, has also been sharply criticized by both intersex and transgender advocates for his influential stances on genital surgery for intersex babies (acceptable in some circumstances) and testosterone limits for women competing in the Olympics (he helped set them). Why does this scientist with a chip on his shoulder about political correctness, and views hostile to those of the trans and intersex community, get to frame the subject of how trans kids get to participate in sports?
Just like the Post, the Times found the question of trans participation “vexing,” presenting trans people as objects rather than subjects in the matter. Fifteen sources were quoted; four were trans athletes, but none appeared to have actually been interviewed by the Times. (The paper reprinted public statements or quotes from other news outlets.)
Further down in the lengthy piece, a section header was given over to another cisgender scientist playing he said/she said: “‘One group prioritizes inclusion. Another group says we want fairness and safety.’” Though “safety” was mentioned four times in the article as some sort of reason to bar participation, nowhere did it explain how trans kids pose any safety threat to other kids. In fact, the central safety issue in the context of trans kids in sports is the danger to trans kids as a result of being stigmatized, harassed and excluded—which the article failed to mention.
If you dig deeper to discern what exactly the vexing problem is that transgender athletes supposedly pose to others, it appears that many are worried that, because testosterone can confer some physiological advantages on individuals in terms of things like height and muscle mass, it therefore creates an unfair advantage to those with more of it.
But, just like sex, testosterone is not binary; everyone’s body produces testosterone, and while most men produce far more than women, some women produce more testosterone than some men. Rather than accept this human variety just as we accept that all top athletes are exceptional in some—often genetic—way, some world sports organizations have insisted that female athletes whose bodies happen to produce high levels of testosterone medically lower their testosterone levels, regardless of whether it is medically indicated (Wired, 5/11/19).
If “transgender girls are at the center of America’s culture wars,” they’re not at the center of this Washington Post piece (1/29/21); only one trans girl is quoted, in the article’s very last paragraph.
An earlier prominent Post piece (1/29/21)—”Transgender Girls Are at the Center of America’s Culture Wars, Yet Again”—similarly failed to put those girls at the center of its reporting. The piece featured 11 sources, only one of which was identified as a trans athlete. She was the very last source in the article. More Republican politicians were given space to opine than trans people, giving a platform for transphobic and sexist comments, such as this quote from Tennessee state Rep. Bruce Griffey, whose stake in this matter is that his cisgender daughter plays high school golf: “What if one of the boys is not doing well, so he pretends to be transgender to win?” Or South Dakota Rep. Fred Deutsch: “This is not a hate bill. It’s about biology. It’s science. You can’t change your sex.”
The Post‘s reporting isn’t always quite so cringeworthy. A more recent piece (4/24/21) about the Arkansas law banning gender-affirming healthcare for transgender children focused on the families with trans kids impacted by the law, giving them more space than supporters of the bill—though still, no trans people themselves were quoted.
The only front-page New York Times article (3/29/21) this year about the current trans bill battle, “Why Transgender Girls Are Suddenly the GOP’s Culture-War Focus,” was similar. The subhead re-emphasized the headline’s framing of the issue as “a culture clash”—a craven choice of terms for what is in fact a targeted political attack on the humanity of a group that currently makes up 1–2% of the population. The piece quoted or paraphrased seven individuals or groups; none were trans athletes, and only one—ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio—was identified as transgender, period.
The paper has only covered this year’s legislative campaign four times in print. Notably, two of the pieces have been interviews: one with transgender Virginia state representative Danica Roem (4/17/21), and the other with Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (4/8/21), who signed into law bills barring trans girls from playing girls’ sports and allowing doctors to refuse to treat trans patients, then vetoed a bill that would prohibit gender-affirming healthcare for trans kids. (That veto was later overridden by the GOP-dominated legislature, enacting the country’s most extreme anti-trans law so far.)
Though they carried different bylines, it’s hard not to see the two interviews as an editorial attempt at balance—in which a trans lawmaker is balanced by a slightly-less-horrifically-transphobic-than-his-colleagues lawmaker. Trans kids—and the rest of the papers’ readers—deserve much better.
This is such a good piece! Thank you so much for explaining why the “debate” over trans kids’ rights feels like an attack rather than a genuine discourse. Your points are all plain as day. Responding to them cannot be done without resorting to smoke-and-mirrors style subject changing or outright admitting that the legislative efforts targeting trans people are hate-based.
The very first sentence is loaded. What Julie calls dehumanizing, others call protecting our youth from people who might mean well, but can actually do long term harm. Others also might call it protecting real girls’ ability to compete against other girls and not biological boys. Julie supposes that there is animus. Why can’t people that oppose a left wing view have pure thoughts that differ?
Nobody is attacking anyone’s right to exist. We are attacking people who might mean well, but might do harm. We don’t let teens drink, because they aren’t fully matured. We don’t let teens smoke for the same reason. Making a permanent, life altering decision is wrong.
If the right were attacking somebody’s right to exist, there would be laws that prevent an adult from becoming a tranny. Name those laws. If they were attacking a person’s right to exist, there would be laws calling for the execution.
Julie, at best, should have stated the laws were preventing potential trans teens from converting as opposed to their right to exist. She knows better, she’s just going after the dramatic to make a point.
Quickly despite sensing this is a waste of my time:
– “Tranny” is a demeaning, insulting term that is for transsexuals the equivalent of the N-word. Stop using it.
– The business about “unfair competition” is an excuse, not a reason, particularly because research has shown that within a year of beginning hormone therapy, the supposed advantage, to the extent it exists, has essentially disappeared.
– The laws preventing trans teens from transitioning (not “converting,” which implies becoming something they weren’t before rather than freeing them to express who and what they already are) do in fact deny their right to exist – their right to exist as who they are, as the gender they are. It’s “you can ‘exist,’ so long as it’s in the form of which I approve,” no different from “you can be homosexual, so long as you stay in the closet.”
– The reason the right-wing focus is on trans girls, not trans boys, is because it plays off the stereotype of girls being weak and needing protection, plays on fears much more than the reverse. It’s the same as during the “bathroom bills” business, when all the focus was on horrified visions of “men” going into women’s rooms, not the other way around.
– As for banning adults from transitioning, what in heaven’s name makes you think the same forces wouldn’t try if they could figure a way to pull that off?
– So among “people who might mean well, but might do harm,” you should include yourself. Although l’m not sure about the “might” part.
The troll is now well-fed and gets no more.
Oooh he said a bad word. Grow up.
Notice how Larry changed the subject? I stated that nobody is stopping a “person’s right to exist.” He changes that to we on the right are stopping a “person’s right to exist as who they are.” How disingenuous.
Where are the girls into boys beating boys records? They don’t exist. If you don’t think there’s a difference in the sexes, you’re a fool.
Men couldn’t care less if a woman comes into our bathrooms. Men won’t be raped or spied upon by women. The opposite isn’t true.
No, I’m including you in that group. I think you mean well, but are severely handicapped with your world view.
Show me the legislation? You didn’t. You just painted the right with some imaginary evil brush. Examples are important. Show me the legislation preventing adults from becoming trannies. FWIW, I would oppose that legislation. What an adult does that doesn’t harm anyone else is their business. Children need protection. That’s why we have different laws for minors and majors. They cannot even sign an enforceable contract.
Nice to see that you’ve been fed, but I’ll determine when I stop feeding you.
Tim,
What is the difference between a “right to exist” and “a right to exist as who you are?”
If you can’t differentiate between the two, then they are identical…and they are.
You are out here splitting hairs about a slight rewording of the exact same fundamental right…meanwhile you still have not answered how your anti-trans position is consistent with being “Libertarian?”
The Libertarian Party is against all of these anti-transgender campaigns. The LP are out here fighting these senseless unconstitutional over-reaches. All this is doing is causing states to have to spend millions fighting lawsuits, and you could care less…and you have the nerve to pass value about somebody else’s worldview?
The only one who is clearly uninformed and whose thinking about this is bass-ackwards is you my man.
FWIW:
Senate Bill 514, is a North Carolina bill that would ban medical treatment for transgender people aged 18-21. In all fifty states 18 is the legal age of adulthood.
Some Final Q’s and Comments for yourself, this is none of my business…but:
What is up with you and this axe you have to grind against the entire transgender community? Why do you insist on using words that are hurtful and cruel when there are plenty of other ways to refer to people?
What you hate about others you hate about your self.
Peace to you Tim
Any law that states an adult cannot do what they wish (so long as it doesn’t injure another, I am against)
You are passing judgement on my world view. Hypocrite much?
Fool. Right to exist is the ability to live. Right to exist as who you are doesn’t kill somebody. It prohibits them from some activity, but otherwise live. Why do I have to explain something this simple?
I hate the fact that as a kid somebody wouldn’t let me be a girl? Do you think before you emote?
Tim,
You said “right to exist is the ability to live.” Nope, existence entails a whole lot more in addition to just living, you are leaving out a lot.
Existence entails but is not limited to, all of the following:
– being (as in be-ing)
– thinking
– feeling
– and dare I say….emoting
These are all aspects of existence that are unique in themselves. Just living sounds vegetative to me….and maybe that’s the problem here? Tim are you a vegetable?
Just redefine language to suit your position
Tim,
I’ve noticed you do this often; you claim the description of a subject is the subject in-and-of-itself. You are smarter than this. Sometimes I catch hints that you don’t really believe all the shit you post over here on FAIR.
It’s as if you realize the sophist arguments imbedded in some of these reactionary positions….especially when it comes to thinking outside the box with transgender, race-based, and class issues.
The other thing I notice that you do often, is you seem to think the intellect is superior to the spirit, it is not. That’s like saying the left hemisphere is superior to the right one….so untrue.
“The intellect is the bouncer of the soul.” – Bernardo Kastrup
And Tim is one helluva hungry troll ain’t he? He can’t get enough of any FAIR article that deals with:
– Race
– LGBTQ rights
– Anything to do with taxing the rich
– Guns
Whenever I see a comment section under a FAIR article and it has 5 or more posts, rest assured…at least half of them are Tim having the last word.
Why is it that nobody on the right is complaining about boys turning into girls and competing against boys?
It’s because biological girls will seldom beat athletic biological boys. There are no records being beat by these trans boys. That should put to rest the argument that the right is misusing trans girl athletes. Biological girls are the only ones at risk of losing to biological boys.
Where are the feminists on this issue? Why are they not out in large numbers defending girls?
What happened to being a “libertarian” Tim?
I also believe that minors are called minors and not majors for a reason. You did read where I said once they are an adult, I couldn’t care less what the person does?
Tim,
You are no libertarian. These anti-trans laws are unconstitutional. They are blatantly violating the fundamental freedoms and ideas imbued in libertarianism. You are supporting laws that allow the state to intervene in the medically informed private decisions between a family and their care provider.
It is none of yours or the state’s business if a family chooses to seek out medical care with an overwhelmingly successful history of outcomes. What you are calling for is akin to banning all cancer treatment based off the few instances things didn’t go exactly as planned. This is textbook absurdity.
It’s ridiculous, disingenuous, and violates the very ideas of having the freedom to be whom we want, especially when these choices harm no one in the overwhelming majority of cases.
The radical feminists have been fighting for women and girls. It’s just that organizations like FAIR lie about them, by pretending that the opposition to the destruction of women’s sports and women’s spaces comes only from the right wing. There are organizations like the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) who have been fighting against male incursion into female spaces for a long time, and will continue to do so. There are also organizations like Vancouver Rape Relief who are fighting for the rights of raped and battered women to be able to be confident that after having been raped by a male they will not be forced to be confronted with males when they contact a rape crisis center. Feminists are fighting this, and the males who want to colonize women’s spaces are routinely sending them rape and death threats, and organizations like FAIR are routinely ignoring them or lying about them. FAIR completely puts the lie to their organization’s name with crap like this, just like the ACLU has done. They are utterly destroying the reputation they used to have.
To Derrick,
“It’s just that organizations like FAIR lie about them.” is itself a bald face lie.
Since you didn’t mention a damn thing about transgender people, I’m assuming you are coming at this from only one skewed point of view. Must be nice to be you.
Learn to put paragraph breaks in the shit you post….shit-poster.
The Women’s Liberation Front is a fraud. whatever you’ve read or seen about them, rest assured it’s a cut and paste hatchet job, with no history of lobbying on behalf of women outside of being against transgender people.
They are another one of James Dobson’s phony-ass anti-LGBTQ Astro-TERF organizations.
Go read the article titled: “Fake ‘Radical Feminist’ Group Actually Paid Political Front For Anti-LGBT James Dobson Organization”.
Good luck
Co-founder of WoLF here. You are completely wrong. I have been a radical feminist for more than 40 years, and have been working to stop men’s violence and violation of women for all that time. I am not conservative. WoLF exists to protect the rights of women and children from male violence and violation. Your comments are absurd. Many of our members of WoLF are themselves lesbian, and we have strong support among old-school lesbians and homosexuals. We have allied with various LGB organizations, and will continue to do so. We’ve also taken action against the sex industry and attempts to legalize pimping. We would love to return to working on our core issues but until the transgender movement’s threat against women and girls (including lesbians) is addressed we have to keep fighting. FAIR is a group I have respected for years. I am deeply disappointed in this article.
“Co-Founder of WoLF” my ass….you have proof? pfffft!
There are no “co-founders,” there is one founder and HIS name is James Dobson, so I don’t buy your masquerading one bit.
If you’ve been doing this shit for “40 years” why is it that your organization is just now coming out against the entire transgender community?
Why are you organizing to subvert the rights of an entire community of people, the vast majority of whom are doing nothing to harm no one?
Why are you basing your bullshit movement off anecdotes and fear-based nonsense versus the facts?
If as you say you are not “conservative” (whatever that means)…then why are you engaged in behavior that is exactly like the far-right lunatic fringe of the modern day GOP?
I have lived, worked and been around transgender folks my entire life, and not once have I heard of your organization lobbying to subvert their rights until recently. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Good luck trying to convince the rest of these extremely naive plebes who believe everything they read online, you don’t fool me.
So Lierre,
If indeed you are who you say you are, how do you explain the below link to an article posted over on Pink News? The overwhelming theme of the piece shows “little evidence of [WoLF] campaigning on any women’s issues unrelated to transgender people.” :
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/02/08/radical-feminists-team-up-with-right-wing-evangelicals-to-oppose-trans-rights-protections/
Then there’s this devastatingly detailed source over on Transadvocate (dot) com :
https://www.transadvocate.com/fake-radical-feminist-group-actually-paid-political-front-for-anti-lgbt-james-dobson-organization_n_20207.htm
Neither article backs up what you claim about the Women’s Liberation Front.
Finally, for the rest of you to see for yourselves, here is the Wikipedia page for the so-called WoLF, pay special attention to the first damn sentence of WoLF’s own Wikipedia page; which I’m assuming they’ve had plenty of time to correct in the last “40 years” :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Liberation_Front
Feminists are here, defending girls and women from erasure of women’s sex-based rights by males who claim to be girls and women. We are harder to see than activists who believe that men are women, because the well funded and well connected “trans” lobby has had our voices substantially deplatformed in mainstream media. Despite that, do check out Women’s Human Rights Campaign (womensdeclaration.com), become familiar with our work, and support us. We are fighting for much more than sports. We are fighting for free speech, rights for all women (which does not include any men), for all lesbians (which does not include any men), and material reality itself. Follow us and amplify our voices on social media, donate if you can, and join our events.
What strange bedfellows. Conservatives and feminists against the loony left.
In issues concerning the pornification of children, not so strange really. This is how males continue to dominate the Left via Libertarian posturing to silence women’s core concerns of privacy, protection, autonomy, and biological integrity. It is no accident that many of the “transwomen” arguments resemble those from the Men’s Rights Activist crowd.
The key point is summarized in one line of the piece: The media is “presenting trans people as objects rather than subjects in the matter.”
For that reason, however, I was not disturbed by the WaPo piece profiling Chloe Clark. Precisely because transgender folks are so often presented as objects of political disputes, as a category rather than as people, such human-interest stories can serve the valuable end of showing them as actual, relatable people with actual hopes and fears, actual concerns and interests, as *real* rather than as abstractions.
And that is a good thing.
Why is no one questioning the absurdity that says boys and men “knew” they were a woman? If they are men and boys, they could never know what it is to be a woman. The discussion is dadaesque. Stop writing about things that are constructs. Instead of saying transkids, trans girl, trans boy, say boy, kid, or girl. Howxthey dress, sit, talk, present, act, or play, is simply that. They are people of their sex who are a certain way. Boys cannot become girls. It is not possible.Anyone with a lick of sense knows boys and men are different from girls and women and should not compete on a team of the opposite sex.
Wow Melissa,
You said: “Why is no one questioning the absurdity that says boys and men “knew” they were a woman?”
You are begging the question of how you yourself can know the intrinsic nature of another person. You are also defying the premise of your question when you ask that question – think about it.
What is with the anti-science double speak and gaslighting? Sexual stereotypes as you are pushing here cannot be remedied by genetic engineering or plastic surgery and artificial hormones. Let people be who they want to be without the body self hatred and mutilation. I would like to be an octopus or an elephant more than anything, but it is not going to happen. Sadly, the pornification of our children has resulted in a toxic narcissistic sexual obsession with our bodies that is unprecedented in history. The psychological professions have not caught up with the damages of commercial and social media. It is long overdue to have this discussion.
Why is no one questioning the absurdity that says boys and men “know” they are a woman? If they are men and boys, they can never know what it is to be a woman. The discussion is dadaesque. Stop writing about things that are constructs and framed in a laughably biased way. This is a men’s movement bent on violating the last threads of anything they havent yet violated. It is covetousness and jealousy. Stop destroying these healthy boys and girls. They cannot ever turn into a girl. It is ludicrous. Instead of saying transkids, trans girl, trans boy, say boy, kid, or girl. Howxthey dress, sit, talk, present, act, or play, is simply that. They are people of their sex who are a certain way. Boys cannot become girls. It is not possible.Anyone with a lick of sense knows boys and men are different from girls and women and should not compete on a team of the opposite sex.
Melissa,
You are begging the question. First answer this: on what basis can you know what others are feeling from inside themselves? You have no basis for this, you only know what you feel. Since others are an unknown to you, such a line of questioning is nonsense at best, and circular reasoning at worst.
You are either appealing to the magical, or you are appealing to circular reasoning. Figure it out… ;)
I highly suggest you go watch anything from Bernardo Kastrup…he’s a former computer engineer and inventor, who became a philosopher. He makes these kinds of philosophical topics a little easier to understand.
Being female is a material reality, not a feeling. The idea that one can “feel like” a woman without being female is illogical.
You’re right.
Sorry, my comment was for Melissa. You’re right, Melissa. Males cannot become female and vice-versa. This is a fact.
Males cannot know what it’s like to be female, because they aren’t female. Period. This is self-evident, but there are a lot of dishonest people in the world.
What an incredibly misleading article and appearing at FAIR of all places.
Misleading? How so? Put up or shut up…looks like you chose the former….figures.
LEFT-CENTER BIAS
These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. These sources are generally trustworthy for information, but may require further investigation.
Overall, we rate Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) Left-Center biased based on slightly favoring the left politically.
It’s obvious that there is a huge media blackout to anyone on the left who disagrees with this article. Left wing media sources refuse to interview any Democrat who knows that there are only two sexes (basic biology). Which begs the question, what are they afraid of?
Fairness and Accuracy in reporting? That’s laughable. How about you prove it by interviewing those on the left who aren’t afraid to talk about the actual science involved? I have yet to see any left leaning media source do that. It’s a cowardly approach to say the least. Hugely disappointing.
Cody,
It is you who are using phony claims that have no basis in science. Science makes no claims about topics of a subjective nature, ie – sex. You are conflating the biological function of an organism to being identical to its subjective aspects. Doing this begs the question: “Oh yeah? And how do you know that?
You talk about media blackouts, and bias….how about your own implicit bias? You interested in hearing from an actual scientist about why sex is non-binary? Or maybe you all set and could care less about reading against your worldview, and thinking?
Whenever any of you are ready to read an actual scientific article about sex, there is a short piece on Scientific American titled “Stop Using Phony Science to Justify Transphobia,” written by Simón(e) D Sun.
What is with the anti-science double speak and gaslighting? Sexual stereotypes as you are pushing here cannot be remedied by genetic engineering or plastic surgery and artificial hormones. Let people be who they want to be without the body self-hatred and mutilation. I would like to be an octopus or an elephant more than anything, but it is not going to happen.
Sadly, the pornification of our children has resulted in a toxic narcissistic sexual obsession with our bodies that is unprecedented in history. The psychological professions have not caught up with the damages of commercial and social media. It is long overdue to have this discussion.
Sandi Brockway,
The only one doing any gaslighting is you. All you are doing is making vacuous claims with not a single example in hypothetical or empirical reality.
Yet you have the gall to accuse others of “anti-science?”
You radical feminists are something else….if you are standing your ground in lock step with the far-right reactionaries, you are going to go down in history as puppets of the right….
You are going to lose this attempt to force another Bathroom Bill down the public’s throat.
“Pornification?” Must be another one of those “scientific” terms, eh?
test
We already separate sports on the basis of gender. We have organized sports for men and organized sports for women. Why can’t we have organized sports for trans athletes? What’s all the excitement?
John Wheat Gibson, Sr.
Why bother starting a new branch of sports based on gender when it is completely unnecessary? That is the better question to be asking. Why do you think this has only recently become such an issue?
How come after (at least) 40 years of transgender athletes competing in the sports of their gender, there’s suddenly all this excitement?
The answer is simple, because the anti-democratic, illiberal, eliminativist, lunatic fringe of the reactionary right has been grasping at straws trying to come up with new and novel ways in which to troll the left, fracture the liberals, and raise money for 2022.
You are being cruel when you frame this as a debate, and when you keep referring to the junk a person was born with as equivalent to being the end-all be-all that defines their core inner being, and then weaponize a person’s personal journey by framing it as an “before and after” to death, this is akin to referring to black people as subhuman pre-civil rights and civilized post-civil rights. You wouldn’t do that would you? So why is it that people are being so damn disrespectful by referring to transgender folk in this manner?
How is it fair and democratic to punish and torment the lives of the majority who harm no one, based only off a few out-of-context anecdotes?
The thing that has been surprising to me, is how people on the left are folding their arms about these attacks on transgender folks, or how some on the left are going along with the reactionary right’s okie-doke bullshit. Just taking all these fake-ass stories as gospel.
The sports science on this could not be any clearer, the majority of trans athletes who were already fully accepted and competing in the sports of their gender, are not inherently more competitive, regardless of whatever bullshit stories there are out here, or on Facebook.
“Science” You on the left toss that word around but you have no idea what it means. You have no proof, you have nothing, but you’ll toss out “Science” as if we on the right will suddenly say, “Yeah, I guess that settles it.” Knock it off. You’re only devaluing the use of that word.
Your sentence: “How is it fair and democratic to punish and torment the lives of the majority who harm no one, based only off a few out-of-context anecdotes?” Yes. Exactly. The majority of us don’t live in dysphoria. The vast majority of girl athletes are girls. How is it fair and democratic to punish and torment the lives of the majority who harm no one, based only off a few?
Biological males are faster and stronger physically as a whole. Whether or not they feel like girls doesn’t change physicality. Protecting female spaces and sports isn’t denying someone’s right to exist. That is hyperbolic and ridiculous. This article is full of half truths and lies. GI doesn’t give males the right to be in female spaces and sports. Boysvswomen.com shows high school males beating elite Olympic females. These are facts.
Sorry JP LaRose, “as a whole” is meaningless, because every man is not faster and stronger than every women, and every women is not slower and weaker than every man.
“Protecting female spaces,” is paternalistic…and if you are a feminist you ought to know better than to fall for such patronizing garbage.
These clowns pushing these anti-transgender campaigns care about nothing except putting their politicians in office. This is all a ruse to raise money for 2022.
They do not care about Women’s Liberty, they do not care about Women’s safety, and they certainly don’t care about discrimination in women’s sports.
It is impossible for the right to have an honorable position. These loons on the left ascribe evil motivations regardless of what we do. This is precisely why there is no decent dialog.
Tim,
Which is your “honorable position?” Calling people by slurs? Steady objectifying and othering people? Using paternalistic language to paint women as weaker than men?
The science is in bro-and it is conclusive- Every man is not stronger than every women. Duh.
Yes, but every pro athlete male is stronger than every pro athlete woman in the same strength related sport. No science, just common sense. Try it some time.
Ah, so no matter what my position is on trannies, it is against them. Regardless of whether it probably helps teens that are confused? You on the other hand want docs to cut off breasts and give kids drugs that will probably hurt them regardless if they might be confused. You have no concern to the high suicide rate of these kids.
Tim,
You wrote: “…every pro athlete male is stronger than every pro athlete women.”
That sentence mixes sex and gender….probably Freudian….but I get what you mean….and yet, the ideas you were espousing are demonstrably false:
– There are several males in the NBA who cannot dunk while many females in the WNBA can dunk….this one example alone disproves your ignorance.
There you go again, using a slur. Did that make you feel good to post? Did it make you feel tough? Do you feel superior than others Tim? Are you addicted to using cruel language and objectifying others or what?
There isn’t a single WNBA player who could make the NBA. There you go again changing the discussion. We were talking about strength and you turned it into height. Do you always talk about oranges when everyone is talking about apples or is that just the only way you think you have of winning?
I never once said that every man is stronger than every woman. Care to quote when I said that? Othering people. LOL. Another lefty term.
I am not politically correct. You guys always change language. I don’t tolerate new definitions.
Tim,
You said “There isn’t a single WNBA player who could make the NBA.”
I guess if anyone would know better than Kobe Bryant, it’d be some couch potato hypocrite like you, eh?
In an “Insider Magazine” piece, Kobe named Diana Taurasi, Maya Moore, and Elena Delle Donne as players he thought could make a move to the (NBA) league.
Again with the ignorance.
Tim said:
“…I don’t tolerate new definitions.”
An anti-science thing to do btw. Before there was ever quantum entanglement, there was the unnamed process of it. A new description of that process gave us its definition. Ah, but you are all about the 17th century kind of mindset….i get it.
Damn straight you don’t tolerate. That’s the most honest thing you’ve ever said.
Again, Coward changes the topic to suit his arguments. I never once said I don’t tolerate. I said I don’t tolerate these new definitions. I could box your ears on science. I’m an engineer. For the slow here is a very small list of words that the left tell us we’re not allowed to say anymore.
Retarded, Tranny, Negro (unless in United Negro College Fund), Colored (unless in NAACP), Black (unless in BET), sex (now gender), Camilla (nope it’s not pronounced that way – unless she pronounces it that way), Lantino (it’s now Latina or Lantinx), Indian, Mailman (mail person).
I could easily list 200 words that the left won’t let me say any more. I say them with glee because you guys keep moving the goal post.
Boys are not girls and men are not women. Women are female and this biological fact is of extreme social import. Each of us, no matter our beliefs, was born of a woman’s body. This fact of life is essential to consider when looking at women’s sports. A woman’s reproductive capacity makes her body different from the male body. It’s not “right-wing” to acknowledge that males competing against females in women’s sports is not fair. What about the humanity of the girls who lose out on scholarships, medals, and other forms of advancement due to boys competing against them and winning? Girls and women are human beings. We exist. We have the right to sex-segregated spaces because we live in a male-dominated society that institutionalizes the exploitation, objectification, and marginalization of girls and women. The only way to correct this is to allow women to gather, compete, and be housed (in the case of prisons and shelters) away from men. This is not hard. This is just basic human rights for women. If boys who believe they are girls wish to compete in sports, they can either compete against other boys or maybe, if schools have enough funding to cater to this insane ideology, they could compete as a “third gender” against other girls and boys who believe they are the opposite sex. Maybe there could be a “trans” team that competes soley against others who believe in transgender ideology? That seems like the fairest solution to me, other than refusing to cater to the absurd idea that someone is actually the opposite sex because they feel they are.
Wow, the right-wing brigade is at it today…
Go spread your Bathroom Bill Part II horse-dung over on FakeBook. Your tired old nonsensical shit is useless out here in the actual world we all live in.
No matter how you spin this, or try and push phony, fear-based-tropes about others, these trans folk you deny are not going to disappear just because you refuse to admit they exist.
Wow!
Who denies people? Speak English.
We are talking about trans teens and womens’/girls’ rights. Not one mention here about women becoming “men” or men becoming “women” (except where it hurts women). Nobody is calling for them to disappear (whatever that means). Nobody says that they don’t exist. This is a very strange use of the English language.
Use English to make your argument, not some fantasy graduate school creation of new terms.
Whatever…
“Speak English.”
This is called online commenting hoss…no one is doing any “speaking,” anywhere on any of these posts.
Let’s here you box my ears though about why you are the most vociferous on these articles that have to do with LGBTQ issues?
You’re probably another one of these Ted Haggerd types…out here proselytizing away about the so-called inequities of the LQPTQ community, meanwhile….well we all know how shit ended for that right-wing hypocrite.
Your lament for having to treat people with dignity by referring to them with descriptions of their choice is pathetic, boo-hoo, ya big adult baby.
FOR THE SO-CALLED RADICAL FEMINISTS
You see what you all are getting into bed with? This man Tim does not care about women…he and I just had a back and forth where all he could do was obsess about women being weaker in sports. Go on read it for yourself.
Coward,
They already know what your side is doing to them. They see the forced sleeping with men. They see their bathrooms being invaded by men. They see their sports being corrupted by men. They know that this is all enabled by people like you.
They know that the damage you are doing to women is much greater than a person who refuses to use made up pronouns or refuses to use “new speak” terms. They know who the misogynist is. The misogynist is you Coward.
Why do you hate women so much as to harm them in these ways?
You really need to change your name now that you are spouting faith based beliefs as fact. I used to admire and rely on FAIR to report what mainstream media suppressed. But now, as with so much of the left, you have thrown women under the bus to carry water for biology denying trans ideology. How about reporting on the feminist resistance to having our spaces invaded and destroyed? Or how trans activists have worked to close down or defund women’s shelters rather than build their own with their far greater monetary resources. While you are catapulting the propaganda for one group you can never be FAIR. I now know you are one more captured group that will not tell the truth.
Peggy,
Do you have a source for your claim “…trans activists have worked to close down or defund women’s shelters.” ???
I tried three different search engines and all I could find were stories about the epidemic of transgender homelessness.
In order to seek housing, many states require trans folk to out themselves, and then the trans person seeking housing gets denied.
I also found a piece where a transgender person started an organization that builds tiny homes and private shelters for all homeless people – regardless of sexual orientation.
I’ve often found, that Facebook is not a reliable place for news.
Yes. Here: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/shelter-says-it-beat-back-rule-it-take-transgender-women-n1060721
To Tim,
Dude, that article about a “religious charlatan run” aka “faith-based” shelter in Alaska (the third time you’ve used that piece against transgender people) does not say a god damned thing about transgender activists working to shut it down.
So no…you are still 0 : 0 on that one…
The state forced the women’s shelter to take trannies. Does it need to be a person who said “I am a trans activist?” The action still exists.
What woman who has been abused wants to sleep next to another man? Coward must really hate women to decide to ruin their abilities to set records and their ability to feel safe at night. Coward is a misogynist. Why do you hate women Coward?
Tim 3
Coward 0