US Politics |OT|

[Runa216]

Ryuu96 said:

All the far-right grifters around the world hopping onto the Imane Khelif boxing drama, now Trump has just claimed she was a male who transitioned to female (she wasn't), he really is a piece of shit (like JK Rowling), these transphobes are now attacking actual legit women (who could have seen that coming!). Though I find it a sick irony that right-wingers are trying to force a woman into being male.

Yeah that whole thing might be the dumbest controversy in a seemingly limitless string of dumb controversies. Like...what does this even say about them? what point are they trying to make here? And to make matters worse, even when presented with hard, no-nonsense evidence that says clearly 'no, she's just cis and comes from a nation that doesn't even allow gay or trans people to exist without legal ramifications', they either just ignore it, deny it, or make up some nonsense about a hormone disorder that results in her having heightened levels of testosterone. 

Like, there's an argument to be made about trans women competing in sports against cis women. I'm a far-left progressive and am 100% about trans people being valid and deserving of respect but there's certainly a discussion to be had there...and even I'm over here like...what the fuck are they trying to do? Is the goal to just make an even wider divide between male and female in terms of what is and isn't socially acceptable? Are they trying to actively demonize anything even remotely associated with masculinity? Are they actively trying to say that women are inherently inferior/weaker/unable to defend themselves? No matter what angle they're coming from they're being disrespectful and invalidating to SOMEONE, and it's all bad!

Like, I personally do feel that trans people and Cis people are biologically different. Because they are. Doesn't make one inferior or superior, just different. That's why sports are separated by sex as it is. I get it. But I'm not the one competing. Clearly there's a lot of evidence about how hormone replacement therapy alters a person's bone density and physical attributes to more align with their associated gender. Clearly the main issue is the inherent size and strength difference between men and women...so that's why there's weight classes. Clearly the people who understand this shit a whole lot better than I do feel that there's more to it than just 'men beating on women'. I have my knee-jerk reaction to the concept but that's not more well-read or mature than the people who actually have to study this shit and are saying it's fine. I'm not the one competing. 

In the end so much of it is about consent, though. Like, so many of their arguments boil down to 'so you think it's okay for a man to hit a woman?' like that's some sort of gotcha. And no...I don't think it's okay for any one person to attack any other person regardless of gender. But that's not what this is. IT's mutually agreed upon combat sports between consenting parties. If the competitors both agree to it....then it's not abuse. IT's not sexist. It's just two people agreeing to a thing and doing the thing. 

It doesn't matter what angle these transphobes come from, their arguments are bad. And this is by far the most egregious example of it. 

It's almost like conservatives don't actually understand what they're talking about and just like to have emotional reactions to their ignorance without a sliver of self-awareness or reflection. I hate generalizing but that really does seem to be the crux of every argument they ever make. They have some limited, 'basic' understanding of an issue and think their third grade education holds more weight than the experts or the decades of learning we've done as a culture. Of course it's conservatives want to eradicate the department of education. Because Education is antithetical to conservative 'values'. Being educated is the best way to innoculate yourself from conservative ideology.