iNow

The shape of the holes is almost entirely arbitrary, ESPECIALLY in sports... a domain where we LITERALLY write the rules however we wish. They're not handed down from on high chiseled into stone tablets. They change every year, and can change to accommodate transgendered humans. Some people, however, seem to think there's something invariant about the roundness or squareness of the edges on those holes... that there is tremendous meaning and importance in them being sized PRECISELY as they are today... while some other people believe the shape of those holes matters far less than how widely or how narrowly they've been bored by the bit. Being a woodworker, I realize that sometimes some hand filing and sanding is required to make the fit proper... I don't look at a hole I've drilled as if it's perfection that can never again be touched with a tool... I'm more than happy to change bits or switch to a different chisel if the outcome I'm seeking calls for doing so. While I do tend to reject the basic premise here that one group of humans are best described as triangles... and while I'm both willing to accept transgendered humans as round and am also advocating that others do the same... My more basic hope is that we at least all focus a bit less on keeping the existing hole so narrow and rigid and focus a bit more on how we at any time may expand that holes bore width without much consequence... that we may expand it so the "triangles" are no longer seen as so ill-fitting and out of place to so very many of our fellow citizens.

Thank you for reinforcing this point which seemed so obvious to me. I wasn't the one claiming gender segregation was instituted to ensure fairness for females. It simply wasn't. It too was about exclusion, and that's the point. The claim was made in this thread that segregation was instituted to ensure fairness and that's plainly false. Quite right. It's just another slippery slope strawman style argument... Remarkably similar to the "what's next if we allow gays to marry? People marrying their dog or their sheep or their kitchen table?!!???!11!one12!?" style of argument we encountered in those interactions years ago. I'll just highlight once more how the legislation being pushed and enforcement mechanisms being used for punishment are NOT focused at elite levels... they're focused on middle school and high school students, and a bit of college. This is about children and how we treat those who don't fit in with our accepted standards as a society. 171 anti-trans bills across fewer than 50 states in US legislatures... just in 2021... and we're only half way through 2021... One hundred and seventy one... and none of them attempt to address the REAL issues causing problems in female sports. Put simply, talking about those 7 elite level athletes is a red herring, as is framing this as an issue about protecting cis-females. This is about little league, not MLB... kids being transported around in minivans by soccer moms, not LeBron James and Tom Brady... this is about operationalizing and making real the the acceptance of transgendered humans and desire to stop discrimination against them which we both seem to share.

Of course they would, but they don't have to choose. They're doing quite well in both sectors, even though revenue sources / profit margins are clearly biased toward AWS.

Proximity, physical and social. Beyond that, we’re mostly hairless apes just being tribal all of the time and flinging feces at each other.

I could suggest many and from multiple perspectives, but unsure how this is relevant or advances the discussion. Anyway, here are a few just off the top of my head: Political considerations and an unwillingness to stand up strongly in defense of accepting transgendered humans as the gender they identify with, similar to how gay marriage was treated about a decade ago. Concerns over loss of funding from huge donors who happen to be a bit bigoted and find transgendered girls icky… and loss of tuition and fees from uptight closed minded parents who’d pull their children from those schools and programs adding to the negative financial hit. Desire to avoid becoming a punching bags on Fox News, NewsMax, and related right wing media and social media platforms and echo chambers who’d mercilessly turn this into the next culture war (though, let’s face it… the only reason we’re even talking about it here is bc they already have). Basically all of the same reasons people fought to keep Jackie Robinson out of baseball… or gays out of the military… or women from voting and owning property… except this time couched in some vague bogeymen notions of huge testosterone addled bicep bulging hulking men pretending to be women and running around the pitch like mindless Mr Hyde beasts simply ripping the arms off of their XX chromosome competitors with drool hanging from their fangs and bulging bloodshot eyes… just separating those arms in one quick pull from the shoulder orbits with a quick crunching sound… and then running around beating those poor puny tiny helpless defenseless girls on the field to death with their own limbs. Mostly that last one is my suggested reason, but there are others, too.

Read those last 3 words in the quote from me again, out loud if needed. Tell ya what. I’ll make it easy. I retract my claim and will simply reinforce my own personal stance: My position is simple and requires no interpretation. Treat transgendered women as women and let them compete in women’s sports. End program.

Here. This thread. About 4 hours ago. Just above. This same page.

Did I stutter? Source already supplied.

My position is simple and requires no interpretation. Treat transgendered women as women and let them compete in women’s sports. End program. This is a position with which even the majority of women’s athletic organizations and athletes already competing in those organizations themselves seem to agree.

Lol. I see what you did there.

I’m not the one making claims like “we segregated women to be sure they had fairness in competition” so the onus really isn’t on me to go hunting for evidence. I challenge that claim and believe it’s already been challenged by others earlier. Swansont just reinforced it again above. The separation was about excluding women, not ensuring they had fair competitive opportunity. And even if it was, it’s irrelevant. “It’s always been this way” isn’t an argument I find terribly compelling for continuing to exclude transgendered men and women. Even female sports organizations say they should be included (see final quote from my link in the post immediately preceding yours).

A few helpful points https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/26/states-are-still-trying-ban-trans-youths-sports-heres-what-you-need-know/ And while there were many other relevant points, this one really stood out to me: As did this: On a brighter note, at least more than 85% of transgendered youths feel unsafe in school and face regular threats of violence. 🙄

Which ones? I'm fairly sure this same claim was made earlier in the thread and already flatly rebutted.

The other name for those is "Donald Trump." #bonespurs

Thanks for sharing. Does that mean you do or that you do not support allowing transgendered males to compete in male athletic divisions and transgendered females to compete in female athletic divisions?

We’re united in our desire to protect those we love. The divisions often come from us each loving different things.

That’s great. Thanks for sharing, but it has nothing to do with either my reply or the thread topic.

You’re welcome to believe anything you want, but my “guess” at least doesn’t rely on fantasy and instead posits an explanation using known workings of our nervous system.

When read in total, the article does a fairly nice job of being respectful to the multiple positions. You wouldn’t know that by reading only the brief quoted snippets, though

I actually enjoyed the article. Nearly upvoted it. Different strokes for different folks, I guess You literally picked out one sentence from a long-form article. While you don’t find “psychological protections” to be “particularly helpful,” I feel the same way about cherry-picking.

This isn’t a thread about Trump and the way many of his voters felt marginalized and forgotten. You’re wandering thoughts need more focus, IMNSHO.

I could indeed, but I didn’t. I’m not ignoring it. I’m treating it as much less likely.

Do what, exactly? To what end, then? Can we not proceed with improving the horrid response that’s wedged people against vaccines, masks, and social distancing based purely on political affiliation or “news” source AND strive for continuous improvement of lab safety protocols? Summarized: You seem to me to be focused on the wrong things. Bright shiny object syndrome. Perhaps instead consider focusing on how to stop active disinformation campaigns from splitting us apart as a society and causing millions to act in ways deleterious to our collective health as if this is just another edge issue AND explore procedures for further minimizing lab leaks / breakage of safety rules and how best to enforce those rules and protocols just in case the origin wasn’t natural. We can, and should, do both IMO. You seem to be singularly focused on one narrow piece of this puzzle and I believe it’s distracting you from other more important pieces that make up the larger whole. And TBH, I don’t really care what you think I like to do a lot. These are my thoughts, being added authentically to a discussion in a discussion forum consistent with the forum rules to which we each agreed when joining. You’re free to ignore them, but not free to stop me from sharing them. And I’d prefer that the phrase “avoid it like the plague” still actually meant something and hadn’t been cheapened by tens of millions of idiots who distrust experts and refuse to take obvious and simple steps to mitigate spread and needless death (not speaking of you, of course).