skweetis

The only thing I care about is: Will this be enough to pull critical mass from Twitter? I don’t think I’ll ever join, because twitter life made me very unhappy, but the sooner journalists and high-volume celebs move off twitter, the sooner it can be relegated to Truth Social 2 and that, I think, will make the world a slightly better place.

I love the line about "we have 30 tools for [preventing this thing that keeps happening from happening] ". It’s marketing-speak all the way down. Like, wow! Thirty tools!

What escapes dickwads like derphurr is that the law is not the same as justice. People aren’t arguing that the law doesn’t require the disclosure. They are arguing that this case is different because it’s a person who transitioned and that being required to out oneself as trans in order to run for office is a very different requirement than being forced to reveal your old name. The law is not just, and of course it was written without any consideration of trans people - much like the 2nd amendment was written without the remotest concept of what a single person can do to an elementary school with an AR-15. It’s perfectly possible to argue that the law should be enforced until it is changed while acknowledging that it’s unfair. But that would require empathy. And not being an asshole.

It’s sounds like we’re fundamentally in agreement, but I don’t even see the big deal if every once in a while there is one trans girl playing in a competitive youth league. Sure you could argue that there’s only so many spots on the team, so maybe some cis girl who would have made it loses out. But if you’re the 20th best player and you get cut because there’s one trans girl? I mean, you’re the 20th best player, you’re probably not going to be at the top of the recruiters list. I just feel like this time is so fraught for trans people. There are so many powerful forces literally trying to destroy them, I really don’t think we need to worry about hypothetical potential future slippery slopes in kids athletics. Once trans people feel safe, and ideologues aren’t using sports as a wedge issue to promote anti-trans panic, I’m sure we can come up with equitable solutions for these edge cases.

In competitive youth swimming, which I did as a child, the age groups are like 11-12, 13-14, 15-16. So, it was possible for someone who was 12 a week ago to swim against someone who turns 15 next week - a HUGE difference in terms of physical development. And if your birthday happens to fall in the weeks before the big championship meet every year, you are always at the bottom or middle of your age bracket for your entire childhood, never at the top. But the specifics don’t even matter. Age groups and grade classifications are to try to make things a little more fair so that little kids aren’t swimming against basically adults. But it’s not in any way perfectly fair. And also, it doesn’t matter! Let kids play sports and get the benefits of that activity. Your kid’s team winning - or losing - some sports game in 10th grade doesn’t matter. Keeping this girl from playing volleyball isn’t fixing any problem. In Utah they made a ban and there were literally 4 trans athletes in the entire state. It’s culture war bullshit. And people who start quoting bone density studies or whatever are either falling for it or willingly participating in it.

What is the distribution of athletic performance in volleyball between 14 year olds and an 18 year olds? In high school volleyball, it’s perfectly possible for a team made of all 18 year olds who are 6 feet tall to play a team that is all 14 year olds that are 5 feet tall. The idea that without the participation of trans girls, high school volleyball is completely equitable is ridiculous. High school sports are for fun, learning teamwork and discipline, and fitness. Who wins a high school volleyball game is not important. Certainly it’s not more important than the health and safety of trans girls - and non-gender-conforming cis girls who have been and will continued to be tortured by laws like this.

You don’t seem like you’re enthusiastically defending the cops here, but it’s interesting that you can empathize with the cops making a bad decision because “I’m not sure what I would do if I had a gun in my hand and was threatened to be run over.” but you don’t mention that it’s also very reasonable to panic when someone is pointing a gun in your face - especially when it’s a cop and you’re a Black person in America. So, they lacked training, but she was stupid? Also, cops should not be loss prevention staff for corporations.