You can tell inauthentic the Democratic party establishment is by looking at this issue alone. Simply by comparing how someone like Gavin Newsome can’t even reach the same obvious and human conclusion that a right wing Utah Republican did when actually forced to be met with making a decision.
Finally, there is one more important reason for this veto. I must admit, I am not an expert on transgenderism. I struggle to understand so much of it and the science is conflicting. When in doubt however, I always try to err on the side of kindness, mercy and compassion. I also try to get proximate and I am learning so much from our transgender community. They are great kids who face enormous struggles. Here are the numbers that have most impacted my decision: 75,000, 4, 1, 86 and 56.
75,000 high school kids participating in high school sports in Utah. 4 transgender kids playing high school sports in Utah. 1 transgender student playing girls sports. 86% of trans youth reporting suicidality. 56% of trans youth having attempted suicide. Four kids and only one of them playing girls sports. That’s what all of this is about. Four kids who aren’t dominating or winning trophies or taking scholarships. Four kids who are just trying to find some friends and feel like they are a part of something. Four kids trying to get through each day. Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few. I don’t understand what they are going through or why they feel the way they do. But I want them to live. And all the research shows that even a little acceptance and connection can reduce suicidality significantly. For that reason, as much as any other, I have taken this action in the hope that we can continue to work together and find a better way. If a veto override occurs, I hope we can work to find ways to show these four kids that we love them and they have a place in our state.
How common of an issue is transgender in sports actually?
This seems like one of those distractions from the Epstein files I keep hearing about
In actual sports?
.002% (10/500,000) of US college athletes
In the minds of Idiot America?
It’s very much an outsized concern. 73% of Americans were uncomfortable with transgender athletes competing on sports teams that do not match their sex at birth. and even in the Democratic party,
Democrats are more divided on the issue. A slim majority (55%) said they would be not too or not at all comfortable with athletes playing on teams that do not match their birth sex, while smaller shares said they would be somewhat comfortable (21%) or extremely or very comfortable (23%).
Despite there being statistically few transgender athletes, unjustly barring them from sports cements a perception that it’s also acceptable (and under the current administration, encouraged) to discriminate against them across society as a whole.
There is also insignificant scientific evidence that trans athletes have any meaningful advantage.
A lot of trans people, me included, are bad at making doctor’s appointments, let alone anything strenuous and witnessed.
It’s more about an extension of the world view of the people in the Epstein files.
It is the very people in those files that spent decades polling and focus group testing a successful message they could have to attack trans people. The “bathroom” attacks being a failed trial of attack method. But more broadly, using the attack on trans woman specifically to attack woman and children in general.
That is why the entire issue of trans rights is being reduced down to trans girls in high school sports teams.
They don’t give a shit about girls high school sports. Unless you are a parent of a trans kid or a trans kid yourself then YOU should not give a shit about it either.
This is nothing more than a bunch of pedophiles that want to see your kids genitals. It is a defense of patriarchy that is lashing out at the ideas of gender roles and the second class status of woman in society.
Believe it or not, the better stance than sucking up to fascists and surrendering to trans annihilation is to literally not even talk about the trans community at all. Its better to not even engage in the conversation than to call for their annihilation.
These mother fuckers already wanted to kill off trans people. Appealing to fascists is just an excuse. They themselves are fascists.
I don’t think James Talarico wants to see trans people rounded up and killed.
The Roosevelt coalition that passed the New Deal included everyone from Communist sympathizers to Southern white supremacists.
To be successful, the Democratic Party needs to be a big tent.
In North Carolina, Roy Cooper is campaigning by promising to crack down on crime. In Michigan, Democrats are running Dr. Abdul El Sayed, who is a progressive. In Kansas, the candidate is a megachurch pastor. In Nevada, Jacky Rosen is pro-Israel. In Georgia, Jon Ossoff criticized the defund the police movement.
What matters isn’t that these people agree on every issue. What matters is that they agree on taxing corporations, improving healthcare and holding Trump accountable
Elections are a game of addition, not subtraction. Forcing purity tests alienates independent voters who might otherwise support the party on core issues.
Yep, best to just say fuck all the trans people, it’s a big tent and you’re not in it. Sorry charlie, should have been born right. The big tent says trans bad, after all. Best to cater to the lies people have been fed about us. Vote blue no matter who!
Once trans people are banned from sports up to and including chess for their obvious (read: unproven) advantages and children are denied medically necessary healthcare, everyone will surely just let us live happily from there.
How to increase your chance of losing
You need to leave your local college campus.
In a place like Iowa or Kansas, it actually decreases your chance of winning.
Americans were bombarded with Trump ads lambasting Kamala Harris for having endorsed free gender-transition surgery for prisoners and immigration detainees.
What makes this all so maddening is that those obstacles were placed there by well-meaning progressives.
The Trump ad describes an answer Harris gave on an ACLU candidate questionnaire five years ago. (“As President will you use your authority to ensure that transgender and nonbinary people who rely on the state for medical care — including those in prison and immigration detention — will have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care?” Answer: yes.).
I’m sure neither the ACLU nor the Harris staffers who cooperated in this response set out to seed Republican attack ads. Yet a large portion of the work of the progressive nonprofit complex is functionally dedicated to this very outcome.
Americans are broadly supportive of equal rights for trans people. That support does not quite extend to allowing trans athletes to compete in women’s sports, or to medicalizing transitions for children. Trans Activists pushing Democrats to take incredibly unpopular positions isn’t a good thing.
Here is the thing about Republican politicians. A big chunk of their voters don’t care they vote against labor rights, cut taxes on big corporations or slash Medicaid/Medicare. Many get elected primarly on cultural issues. They campaign arguing democrats are anti-american anti-police islamic freaks with blue hair. Don’t give them ammo to shoot at you.
