It’s not only unconscionable for “progressive” Democrats to cheer on trans-identified males (“transwomen”) who compete in women’s sports, but that behavior certainly hurt the Democrats, especially because most Americans, including Democrats, think that this kind of participation should be forbidden:
A recent New York Times/Ipsos survey found the vast majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, don’t think transgender athletes should be permitted to compete in women’s sports.
“Thinking about transgender female athletes — meaning athletes who were male at birth but who currently identify as female — do you think they should or should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports?” the survey asked.
Of the 2,128 people who participated, 79% said biological males who identify as women should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports.
Of the 1,025 people who identified as Democrats or leaning Democrat, 67% said transgender athletes should not be allowed to compete with women.
Among 1,022 Republicans, that number was 94%.
You can find the poll results here.
While at first it seems empathic to allow trans-identified males to compete against women, it’s really unfair to women, and to most of us the total fairness is increased by forbidding that competition. (I still think trans-identified males who want to do sports should compete somewhere, either in an “other” league, or perhaps in men’s sports.) People recognize this, and Democrats who favor this cross-sex competition simply look clueless. (I am exempting any sports in which men and women perform about equally, though I’m not sure which ones.)
As the reader who sent me this new article from the NYT said, “Perhaps the fever has finally broken.” I think it has, for California governor Gavin Newsom, a diehard and largely “progressive” Democrat, is now going along with most Americans. Click below to read the article, or find it archived here.
An excerpt:
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, embarking on a personal post-mortem of the failures of his Democratic Party, suggested this week that the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports was “deeply unfair.”
The comments by Mr. Newsom, who has backed L.G.B.T.Q. causes for decades and was one of the first American elected officials to officiate same-sex weddings, represented a remarkable break from other top Democrats on the issue, and signaled a newly defensive position on transgender rights among many in his party.
Just as surprising as Mr. Newsom’s remarks was the person to whom he made them: Charlie Kirk, a 31-year-old right-wing influencer best known for starting Turning Point USA, the pro-Trump organization that is active on college campuses.
Mr. Newsom invited Mr. Kirk, who has a long history of inflammatory and conspiratorial remarks, onto the debut episode of his new podcast, “This Is Gavin Newsom,” for an 81-minute discussion because, the governor said, “people need to understand your success, your influence, what you’ve been up to.” Mr. Newsom spent much of the conversation reflecting on the myriad ways that former Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign failed to reach key voters during the 2024 election, losing ground with young people, men and Hispanic voters.
Mr. Newsom is widely seen as having presidential ambitions in 2028 — something he joked about on the podcast — and until recent months, he had often sought to project an image as one of the leaders of the Democratic Party’s opposition to President Trump. In December, he cursed Mr. Trump’s name in an interview with The New York Times, but shortly after the president’s inauguration, Mr. Newsom traveled to Washington for a meeting with Mr. Trump to discuss funding for wildfire relief.
I hope, but not sure I exspect, other Democrats to follow his lead. Certainly lost causes like AOC will now follow.
And yes, this is not a huge issue compared to, say, Ukraine, but one’s stand on it is indicative of both one’s moral compass and of one’s sympathy to real feminism. I’ll surely be called a transphobe for applauding Newsom, but so be it. I don’t of course think that most legal and moral rights of trans people should be abrogated, but there are a few cases where they do conflict with rights of other groups (jails, changing rooms, etc.), and one should adjudicate these things sensibly. What one shouldn’t do is hurl slurs at people like Newsom who have a rational approach to the issue.
Well, knock me over with a feather! Didn’t see that one coming—props to Newsom.
It is hard to tell if Newsom or any politician (D or R) takes a position because they believe in it or whether it will get them votes. However, when they take a position different from what 80% of Americans agree with, like not putting boys on the girls soccer team, one might hope they are sincere.
Newsom is a liar and a snake. He doesn’t believe any of this, but his mouth will move and sounds will come out that rebound to his political benefit. Once in office, the trans activists will have full reign as before.
You know what? I don’t care so long as he leads other Democrats in the right direction.
Agreed and, again, my thanks.
Dr. Coyne, I heartily agree with this sentiment but I’m not convinced that he won’t change his mind once he’s in a position to do something. If he actively works to change the situation in California, then I’ll happily say I was wrong, but this seems like a political stunt. I’d predict that the progressives will come after him more for talking to Charlie Kirk than for his comments about men in women’s sports, and that’s what he’s going for – staking out some centrist position and trying to attract a few right wingers who will defend him against the attacks from the left regarding Kirk.
It could also be that he’s trying to create some space to run as a white male in a party that proportionally over-values identity. By taking a position against the identity politics stance that men are actually women, he’s also trying to say that he should white men can be Democratic Party candidates too.
Maybe AOC is not a lost cause. She lost the pronouns from her twitter bio a couple months back.
Looking forward to Jerry’s take on the reply sent earlier this morning by Dan Bolnick to everyone who signed the letter criticizing their “sex is a spectrum” letter to the president and congress. I’m writing a reply directly to Bolnick. I hope others do so as well.
I talked to Luana and she is writing a reply that pretty much speaks for me too, though I’m not signing it (the letter went to her). I may well post it. It’s clear that Bolnick is referring to the wrong EO (or so I think), and I want to know if he’ll take the original statement down and also tell all the members of the Societies that it has been taken down.
They haven’t yet sent it, as I thought, and I doubt they will.
Yes you may be right they’ll just pretend their letter never happened. They wrote to all the signatories today,
“It was quickly clear from the feedback from you and other members that we needed to improve the clarity of the letter. We therefore paused the process of sending the letter to any political representatives. Our intent was to use the feedback we received to rephrase our letter. Subsequently a federal judge decided against the Executive Order we were commenting on, and the wording of that EO then changed, rendering our original letter moot. If we do revisit this issue we may reach out to some of you to help craft a more carefully worded letter that reflects a broader consensus. However, at present, we believe more pressing issues require our attention…[other science agency events]”
It struck me that the 3 presidents who are all biologists could have responded to the biological claims of genderists:
That a person can be born in the wrong body; the internal sense of being the other sex has a biological and genetic basis; this internal sense can be associated with specific structural or functional brain differences in “trans” individuals in fMRI data; medical and surgical transition for “trans” people allows them to change sex; and the medicalization of such feelings in “trans” children is good because they avoid experiencing the wrong puberty.
Instead Bolnick, Ware & Boggs ignored those claims and focused on secondary sex traits and (weirdly) intersex people.
Trans-identified males are already perfectly welcome to compete in sports. Men’s sports. Or in recreational co-ed leagues. If those leagues have a rule about how many men each side can have on the playing surface at once, the trans-ID’d men should be counted as men, of course. But no one is going to welcome them to play at all anywhere if they throw hissy fits about being misgendered. They do have to make an effort to fit in. No one likes a whiner.
Sure they could have a league or division of their own but they would have neither teammates nor opponents. There just aren’t enough of them to make a field. Even the Left says the whole problem is exaggerated because trans athletes are so rare as to be not worth worrying about, which is a wrong inference even though the fact of rarity is true.
Excellent news. Let’s hope it starts a trend.
I am glad for this new stance from Newsom. I can’t say that I know much about him, but many politicians will fly with the political winds when the winds change direction. So this looks like one of those occasions and I don’t know what he really thinks.
You use correct terminology in your headline, but the New York Times/Ipsos survey is using very misleading language. We must be clear on these terms to ensure the general public understands what we are talking about.
1 “a majority of Democrats, don’t think transgender athletes should be permitted to compete in women’s sports.”
This is not true. There is no reason that transgender athletes should be banned from women’s sport if they are biological women, ie transmen. NB “transgender athletes” are not all male.
2 ““Thinking about transgender female athletes — meaning athletes who were male at birth but who currently identify as female — do you think they should or should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports?” the survey asked.”
Using the word ‘female’ for a male confuses everything and removes women’s ability to retain the word ‘female’.
A “transgender female” is a FEMALE who identifies as trans, ie commonly known as a transman. No space there because transman is a noun and not an adjective/noun, because a woman is not any type of man.
When people talk about MEN who want to identify into women’s sports, they should be called ” trans identified men (TIMs)”, as in your headline, because they are biologically men, not any type of woman.
We must use the term man/men for these men. A large amount of the public think that referring to “transwoman” means a post op male. Calling then what they are, men, makes it clear that the vast majority are still fully functioning males, around 95%.
This becomes evident in surveys where you make a distinction. In a Wings Over Scotland survey the answers were different when people were asked about “transwomen” accessing women’s spaces and “fully intact men” accessing women spaces. The vast majority opposed the latter.
I have never seen a survey on behalf of the trans community that makes this distinction, so people respond to their surveys without knowing we are talking about fully intact men who have no gender recognition certificate and may not even present in female attire. They don’t clarify specifically to hide the facts.
I’m talking about biological males who have gone through puberty, so no, I am not talking only about “fully intact men”, though those are disqualified as well, of course.
As there are changes to girls’ sport in the USA too, I took this article and survey to be about all males, not just the older ones. I thought they just used ‘men’ as shorthand for male as no biological male of any age should participate in sports that are specifically for biological females, regardless of their age or genital arrangement.
I should, of course, have referred to “trans identified males” not “trans identified men” because I was referring to all ages.
Even those who have been fighting this for over a decade like me can get our language in a twist sometimes 🤦♀️
Yes indeed, PPC(E). I think the point here though is that MOST people don’t bother to get their head about the concept of “trans”(fake) men.
HT to Helen Joyce: “When you see ‘trans’ think ‘fake'”. Which is clarifying.
Otherwise the TRAs have muddied the definitional water.
D.A.
NYC
I should have included the survey I referenced. Here’s the link.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-cock-and-ball-story/
“Not even the youth want penises in any women’s spaces if you ask the question clearly.”
NB This survey was done before rapist ‘Isla’ Bryson was put in a women’s prison and ‘Amy’ George was jailed for 20 years for abducting and sexually assaulting a school girl. I suspect opposition to many women spaces will be even higher now.
Joolz, I agree with you. Males who identify as a woman should be referred to as trans-identified males. But the data from the New York Times/Ipsos survey question you quote, I have confidence in them (as a lower bound on the share of the population that does not want males, whether they are trans or have an intersex condition like Caster Semenya, in women’s sport) because the question does not just use the confusing term “transgender female athletes,” but actually defines this term as “athletes who were male at birth but who currently identify as female.”
“Transwoman” should mean a female who identifies as trans, and “transman” should mean a man who identifies as trans. But this clear language does not serve the purpose of the trans activists.
The expression “athletes who were male at birth but who currently identify as female” is still nonsensical in the sense that if you were male at birth then you will always be male (except if your sex was misidentified at birth because of an intersex medical condition).
My comment on that NYT article was, amazingly approved. I got dinged by another reader for what was perceived to be mean-spirited snark. What I wrote:
— The intrusion of men pretending to be women (“trans women”) into women’s sport is demonstrably unfair and potentially dangerous to natal women. And if that’s not enough to be a concern — and it should be sufficient — it’s a certain losing position for whatever political party pushes this misguided policy. This was a wrong action and catastrophic error by the Democrats. It’s long past time for the Democrats to man-up, admit the error, and move on to the critical issues of the era. —
Now it’s time to rethink my language and write & U.S. mail a careful letter to my two senators & my congressional representative, not to mention the governor and attorney general. There’s a lot of good language to parse though, to write something good and not be perceived as mean-spirited. But after reading and listening to the rage and frustration of sex realists, it’s tempting to just let it fly. (and, ha, man-up, see what I did there?)
Also, thanks to the host of this blog and ism others for putting me onto this issue. (I was thinking of other things…)
I frankly think we should use the term, “trans-women.” That term is simple and will be less likely to put people off, and we can mostly agree with the cliche that trans-women are women — except for participation in most sports. Unfortunately, there are probably not enough trans-women to form their own leagues, but there is a reason that we separate men’s from women’s sports.
“we can mostly agree with the cliche that trans-women are women”
Well, many of us will not agree that trans women are women. They are men whom for some reason would like to be seen as women. I have no problem with that, however, as many gender critical says: when you start accepting that “trans-women are women” you will have the slippery slope that has made all this mess
“When you start accepting that “trans-women are women” you will have the slippery slope that has made all this mess.”
Took it from my mouth!
Trans-women are not women. If they were, you would not write something like “except for participation in sports”.
You would also have to carve out many other exceptions, such as trans-women are not women for the purposes of women-only scholarships, women-only schools, women-only prisons, etc…basically reducing the phrase “trans-women are women” to a nonsense statement.
As much as I sympathize with a person who believes that they do not fit with their biological sex…a person who produces the small gametes is a male no matter what they say.
It is clearer to me as well that “trans-women” means biological males who believe they are women. If someone were to say “trans-identified men”, or “trans-identified women”, I would not be sure what they meant since I’ve not seen those terms before that I can recall.
I’ve tried out the phrase “trans-women are women” here in WEIT and elsewhere (as it it felt agreeable to me at the time), but I’ve gotten push-back and the rationale put to me made me reconsider my position. A problem with the phrase is that, if generally accepted, it can be used to weaken the firewall around some critical things like keeping trans women out of female sports and prisons.
Trans-women are never women. Not in sports, not in prisons, not at work, not in dating, not in pronoun discipline, not in affirmative action/DEI, not in awards for “Woman of the Year”. Never. They are men. There’s nothing special about their claim to be women that entitles them to any special civil rights. I don’t care if the claim puts them off. Overcome their offputtedness.
Yes to simplicity! Why must the the majority constantly tie ourselves in knots over deliberately confusing language, when “only women are women” is so much easier and to the point.
Matt, sorry if you feel piled on, but I certainly don’t agree that “trans women are women.” Others have offered good reasons for their disagreement. Here is one more: 1) it insults women by reducing us to sex stereotypes.
Trans activists base the claim that trans women are women by relying on the vague term “gender,” which Jerry posted about yesterday. Briefly, the word can’t refer to anything inherent unless you believe that there is something, some internal sense of self, that is shared by all “trans women” AND all adult female humans (except for those who call themselves “trans men.”)
That’s a non-falsifiable claim, and one that I find ludicrous.
All that’s left are sex stereotypes (what Judith Butler calls “gender performance.”) I don’t think I have to explain why reducing womanhood to stereotypes about what women are or should be is a big problem.
(The “Trans women are women” claim also raises the question, “what is a woman?” I defy you to find a pro-gender identity activist who can answer that question clearly without resorting to circular reasoning or the reply, “Anyone who says they are one!”) (Actual claim made by actual people capable of dressing themselves without help.)
Oh, you can pick on me if you want; you would not be the first. This is kind of a reply to you and Mark Sturtevant.
If a man came to me and said, earnestly, “From now on, please call me Your Excellency,” I would laugh at him. But if he came to me and said, “I do not expect you to fully understand, but I suffer from gender dysphoria, and though I am a biological male, I really, really feel that that I am a female. Please, therefore, use the pronoun ‘she’ and call me a trans-woman,” I would honor that request. It is only polite to do so. I would treat her as a woman in virtually every respect, though I would draw the line at competitive sports. There is, after all, a reason that we have women’s sports in the first place.
One reason for using “trans-woman” is that a locution like “trans-identified males,” besides being awkward and unclear, may be offensive to the very people we want to influence, and they will be turned off the instant we use that term. This, I should add, somewhat irrelevantly, comes from a person who used to insist that gender was a property of language that happened to correlate loosely with sex in certain languages.
I realize that I have not covered your entire comment, and I agree that a man who claims to be a woman is not necessarily a woman – far from it – but surely a biological male who is truly gender dysphoric ought to be given the courtesy of being treated as a woman if that is what she wishes.
Doing it as a courtesy for a friend is one thing; I understand and do not object to that.
I do object to gender identity being prioritized over sex in law and social policy.
I should think not. But he seems to be enforceably a woman in “virtually” every respect. I ask the following to examine how you would actually behave with this individual in social circumstances that test revealed preferences. I’ll assume he’s a friend, as Lady Mondegreen would sympathize with, but recall that your comment referred to any man. I don’t intend to start an argument over the answers but I think they are common practical questions that need to be asked:
1) Does your hypothetical friend expect you to refer to him as “she” even when he’s not in earshot? (When talking to someone you don’t use third-person pronouns.) If a mutual acquaintance gossips to him that you referred to him as “him” after he left the room, and he remonstrates with you later, do you make earnest eye contact, apologize, thank him for the learning opportunity, and promise to do better? (That’s the drill with misgendering and dead-naming. “Uh, sorry” won’t do.) Or do you decide this friendship is too high-maintenance to continue with, and ghost him? What if he has power over you, as a peer or subordinate in a workplace that will enforce against you the very trans kindness that you endorse?
2) How do you know when a man is “truly” dysphoric? Is this a testable truth claim or is “truly” just a throwaway word here? Is even the implication that someone could be “falsely” dysphoric an expression of transphobic hate? If he says he’s dysphoric, he’s dysphoric. And what if he doesn’t choose to share that he’s dysphoric, but just says he is a woman and you will please be good enough to refer to him as she/her from now on? When we are kind, we reserve the right to become unkind if we suspect the person is manipulating our kindness to get power over us. Are we allowed to transact kindness that way with trans people? Or is kindness an enforceable duty toward them?
3) If he hit on you in the rare circumstances nowadays where it wouldn’t be sexual harassment, would you regard it as an advance from a woman or from a homosexual man? “No thank you” as the safest response is fine either way but what would it make you feel like inside? (This depends on your own sexual orientation and I certainly don’t mean to pry.) I think the test of whether you really believe a given man is a woman is rooted deep down in there.)
4) Does he agree with your opinion about excluding him from playing women’s sports, or any other women’s activity you might argue to exclude him from? This is your claim, not his. Have you asked him? What if his test of friendship was that you were going to cheer him on at the women’s rugby match this Saturday?
I don’t agree, but sort of see your point if it is genuine gender dysphoria. But since the pronoun crowd now also embraces self-ID, there is no way to tell whether it is genuine. The result is that the only thing that matters is self-ID.
I don’t agree even in the case of “genuine” gender dysphoria. It is a slippery slope which got us here in the first place.
And many, many women object not just with regard to sports, but to men in women’s spaces in those places where such segregation is legally and otherwise supported by society.
It’s not at all obvious whether the term “trans-woman” means a man transitioning to a woman, or a woman transitioning to a man. Both interpretations are perfectly logical, so the term is not clear at all. I like the suggestion of mentally replacing the word trans with fake, but does that always work?
I have the same problem with pro-choice and pro-life. I always have to pause to work out which is for and which against abortion.
One small step in the right direction.
67% of Democrats polled thought that transwomen should be allowed to participate on girls and women’s team against natal females? If the Democratic Party is made up of a majority of females and if that majority believes that biological males who identify as female should be allowed to compete as females against biological females then:
1. That majority probably never had an experience of formally competing in team sports so values a perception of kindness toward transwomen competitors over fairness to natal female competitors; and
2. 67% of Democrats should avoid professions that require objective analysis, systemic thinking and common sense and opt for careers that highly value empathy and concern for people deemed to be oppressed.
Suzi you misread the 67% statistic. Quoting from Jerry’s post (emphasis added):
Though as Joolz (comment # 8 above) points out, the quoted sentence is false in the sense that 67% presumably said that transwomen (that is, trans-identified males) should not be allowed in female sport.
The issue isn’t trans, the issue is that transwomen are males (and that’s why they should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports). Trans-identified females can compete in women’s sports as long as they are not taking testosterone (a banned performance-enhancing substance). We already had a trans-identified female win an Olympic gold medal at the 2021 Tokyo Olympic games. That athlete was Quinn (formerly, Rebecca Quinn), a member of the gold-medal-winning Canadian female soccer team.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinn_(soccer)
Thank you Peter, you are absolutely right. I appreciate the time and effort you gave me to correct my wrong assumption.
Additionally, Nikki Hiltz, a female who identifies as transgender and nonbinary, came in 7th in the 2024 Olympics in the 1500m run, and took a silver in the 2024 World Indoor Games. I don’t know why “they” don’t choose to run as a male since as nonbinary she could goes back and forth as she whims.
Newsom strikes me as an empty suit. He’s obviously putting a stake in the ground to run for president. It could go in two different directions should he get elected:
1. He sticks to his position after elected and keeps in place any Trump-era orders
2. He eliminates all or most of those and goes back to Biden-era policies
Unfortunately, I don’t trust him to stick to his guns on anything so if I had to put my own money down, my bet would be #2 as it would put him back in line with the party. One simply needs to look at the evidence in California.
Apparently this athlete is not a cheater but really believes and feels what she says.
Hmmmmmm. I take it that Newsom is running for something. Let’s see what he does in California about this issue while still governor.
My suspicion is that this is all pose.
President in 2028, I’m guessing.
I’ll believe that he’s serious on fairness for women when he speaks out against men being admitted to women’s prisons in California thanks to the ridiculous SB 132, “The Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act”, which forces the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to “house the person in a correctional facility designated for men or women based on the individual’s preference”.
I think he has a pretty long history of unpopular far left policies toward homelessness and crime , and those will make his road to the White House a very steep climb. I can be persuaded otherwise, but I hope his road to being the democratic nominee is also a very short one.
From the NYT article:
It’s very annoying to me that the NYT journalists use this activist language. Keeping trans-identifid males out of women-only spaces does not erase them. They can keep identifying as women, but we are under no obligation to treat them as women.
Though I don’t understand why Trump does not want transgender people in the military. As long as they can do the job, and don’t insist on using opposite-sex facilities, I see no problem.
The trans issue is the canary in the coalmine. Anybody who thinks that humans can change sex is being very unreasonable and calls his own credibilty on other issues into doubt.
I saw that that too, that activist language. Glad you picked it up & commented.
There is general confusion in the public still regarding trans-women and trans-men — for that, I think there is a rex realist (Helen Joyce?) who offers this mnemonic: for sex, trans = fake.
I think it was Peter Boghossian when he was interviewing Helen.
On the issue of transgendered people in the military, NPR interviewed a couple members in the military that fit that category. At least from impressions over the radio, they were super articulate and as professional and dedicated to doing the job they loved as one could ever ask for. I felt that it was a terrible thing being done to them since it had 0 to do with the quality of their service. Trump’s policy seemed terribly wrong to me.
Peter, And when the man who believes he is a woman is your military commander and insists that you call him “she” and acknowledge that he is a “woman,” what then?
“Anybody who thinks that humans can change sex is being very unreasonable and calls his own credibility on other issues into doubt.” Precisely.
Doug,
I’m afraid yours is a non-sequitur. A person may be trans and yet think they have NOT changed sex (see e.g. Buck Angel or Debbie Hayton).
Therefore, even if we agreed that believing in “changeability” of sex is a sufficient condition to disqualify from office (and I would be very skeptical, it seems a violation of freedom of belief and speech), we couldn’t conclude those military have to be dismissed if we don’t know what they personally claim.
Such a distinction might very well prove to be difficult to be done in practice, so I would be inclined to go along with what most people think: the surveys show that most agree with leaving women’s sport to women, but they also agree military shouldn’t be fired simply for being trans.
Enrico,
I’ll repost a comment I made last month in response to someone’s query. But I’ll first add that if you believe freedom of speech (and expression) is relevant to military service, you obviously have no idea of the many restrictions imposed upon those who serve.
“Perhaps as one example, is there really any principled reason for Trump to ban trans individuals in the military?”
Yes. If their condition limits their availability for deployment; if they need special accommodations that are rarely, if ever, available in spartan conditions; if they suffer from mental health issues because of their condition; if their presence would disrupt the unit—something akin to men in women’s prisons. I would have documented the problems that might exist before issuing a blanket ban, but I suspect the data will support it. The military is primarily about the mission, not about the self-fulfillment of individual desire. “But they want to serve!” And so do many others who find that the governing DoD directive has over 40 pages of medical, physical, and psychological conditions that disqualify people from service.
Thanks, but that’s a lot of “if”, and you’re wrongly assuming that military is only about spartan conditions, while on the contrary it’s not just about fighting on the ground (in a jungle?). Forse example, there is logistics and intelligence.
Women because of sexual difference have less strength than men and yet they can serve. You have to build a better case with less ifs and more data
Late on this, sorry, Peter. I tried to re-find some Obama-Biden-era Dept. of Defense policy documents with details on this but Google has been swamped by news about President Trump’s recent changes. Service members should please correct me if I mis-state.
Your two-part test for personal acceptance fails on at least one of its criteria. The trans policy of the Biden Administration consisted of orders that all members of the military departments, recruited and serving, were to be regarded in all senses as the gender they self-identified as. Commanders were ordered to house soldiers and sailors in barracks and naval berthing spaces according to their self-declared gender, not according to what an observer would reasonably interpret as their sex. Women troops who complained were to be managed as problems of discipline and insubordination because once an order is issued it must be obeyed.
The Provost (Police) in the Canadian Armed Forces were called in recently to investigate transphobia when the supply service ran out of tampons. They were disappearing from the men’s latrines on military bases at a rate far higher than projected based on the number of enlisted transmen. So it seems inescapable that a gender-based policy involves trans troops living in opposite-sex spaces. How could it not? Central to honouring a self-made claim of gender is letting the troop live in the space with others of his gender.
As to whether they can do the job, that has become a political football because the “job” of the military is also its mission. All military jobs, even the ones within the physical capacity of women, require the soldier to have passed the physical standards for his or her sex during basic training. All members may at some time be first responders: damage control, casualty extrication, and self-defence with lethal force. If members are treated according to their declared gender it not clear to me that a transwoman must do more than pass the female standard, which would be a travesty. And very few transmen can meet a male standard no matter that he is imagined to be one. So there has to be some manipulation of physical standards if the military is to be gender-inclusive. If a transman is sent out to an operational unit doing male-coded jobs even if not infantry or artillery, “he” is going to be the weak link in the chain if something goes wrong, even if in normal peacetime he is “just one of the guys”, as a petite and wispy Canadian vehicle driver put it in a Dept. of National Defence video.
It is very difficult to find material on line that addresses this question in a non-ideological manner. Most presentations take the view that being transgender is just like being homosexual, or non-white, not a bar to dedicated, committed service. This view ignores the externalities of being a man in a women’s living space, or a woman on a physically rigorous operational mission with men. The externalities are of course completely invisible to a person preoccupied with himself. Earnest assertions that they don’t compromise readiness elide over the fact that the vast majority of operational units have no trans members at all….and, as in any DEI environment, commanders are strongly disincented by the culture from identifying any problems in the ones that do.
If Gavin Newsome ever becomes Commander-in-Chief he’ll have to think about this.
He removed the “T” from “LGBT” at the Stonewall Inn National Monument. I thought that was mean but others here disagreed with me and thought it appropriate.
That could lead to a trans person thinking they were being “erased.”
The Democratic Party position on the issue of boys and men competing as women in athletics and competitive sports is not just unpopular and helps lose elections- it is wrong. I care about fairness and equality. That is why housing, employment, and public services should not be denied based on a person’s trans identity. It is also why men don’t belong on women’s sports teams, in women’s prisons or locker rooms. I’ve ignored this issue in my communications with my representatives and in the voting booth because other issues are much more important to me. I considered this a nuisance issue along the lines of agree-to-disagree. “Transwomen are women” embraces lies about reality as well as injures women. It is, unfortunately, a huge issue. This site has clarified for me the danger to rational scientific thinking that arises from embracing nonsense in an effort to support civil rights. Good for Newsom. Criticisms of his revised position based on the fact that he is ambitious are laughable. In the US, not being ambitious is a crime.
Well said — your comment — I will copy and file to paraphrase, work it in with other succinct summaries that I find persuasive and reasonable.
A typo? “Certainly lost causes like AOC will now follow” is either that, or uncharacteristic (and IMO highly apt) snark.
I’m betting on typo 😅
This has also been covered by Politico: https://archive.is/hJ9HH
NYTimes writes in this article:
“But at other points in the conversation, the governor criticized “the way that people talk down to vulnerable communities” and discussed the high rates of suicide and depression among transgender people.”
The quote unquote high rates of suicide among transgender people is largely a myth. This point was made clear by Tavistock, Finnish study published in Feb 2024, and the Cass report…..as well as oral arguments in front of US Supreme Court in Skrmetti case argued Dec 4, 2024.
Yes, the admission by Chase Strangio in front of the Supremes that suicide is thankfully rare was a very interesting moment.
Strangio, AOC and Newsome… are bad actors. Not that they couldn’t be in movies – that they are opinion weathervanes and unhelpful to actual progress.
Nothing more. Untrustable as Trump.
AOC’s position on Palestine had me spending Money on getting her defeated.
D.A.
NYC
I’m not certain it would be fair to allow trans men/boys (biological females) to participate on women’s teams if they are taking testosterone. Is anyone familiar with studies?
I seem to remember that it was possible for them to apply for a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE), but I’ve no idea how likely it is that they would be granted one or what restrictions might be required.
Edited to add link: https://www.usada.org/spirit-of-sport/transgender-athletes/
It will be interesting to see if Newsom gets the J.K. Rowling treatment.
Probably a little, but I think he’ll survive just fine. Most Democrats know men in women’s sports is not the hill to die on, and Newsom may provide cover for some Dems to reframe their position. He is very capable of taking the heat. Newsom is charming and charismatic, and slithers through every obstacle to his political career.
Also, J,K. Rowling is a woman. The TRA’s seem to get especially infuriated when a woman questions their status.
I’ll second that. I don’t think he will, as everyone knows from his actions that he really doesn’t feel that way, and we all recognize that he’s only saying that in preparation for a 2028 presidential run.
What is remarkable is that Gavin Newsom’s new pronouncement is considered remarkable. Would there be discussion if Newsom endorsed age restrictions for Little League baseball? Weight classes in boxing? Vision tests for driver’s and pilot’s licenses? Social psychology of the future will need to study how “born in the wrong body” derangement became orthodoxy among what are called “liberals” in the US, and what are called “Scottish nationalists” in Edinburgh. Perhaps today’s sudden worship of tariffs among what are called “Republicans” in the US is another example. Future sociologists should have a field day.
Newsome’s new stance, remarkable? Downright brave and stunning! That was the phrase right? I don’t know the current version.
The Republicans worship of tariffs floors me. I grew up thinking Republicans were Milton Friedman freemarketeers and this is antithetical to that. But on the other hand, a lot of Trump’s policies were mainstream Democrat policies 20 years ago. The Democrats were strongly against illegal immigration for a long time because unions were against it. However, now that unions are not so much tied to manufacturing but more to government jobs, the tide has turned (less than half of the United Auto Workers union work in the automotive industry today!).
Many Republicans remain opposed to tariffs. The editorial board at the WSJ keeps running op-eds against them. Trump was infuriated when they called his policy “dumb.”
The only supporters are the hard core MAGA crowd. They accept everything Trump does without question.
“Certainly lost causes like AOC will now follow.”
As o’er my latest book I pored,
Enjoying it immensely,
I suddenly exclaimed ‘Good Lord!’
And gripped the volume tensely.
‘Golly!’ I cried. I writhed in pain.
‘They’ve done it on me once again!’
And furrows creased my brow.
I’d written (which I thought quite good)
‘Ruth, ripening into womanhood,
Was now a girl who knocked men flat
And frequently got whistled at’,
And some vile, careless, casual gook
Had spoiled the best thing in the book
By printing ‘not’
(Yes,’not’, great Scott!)
When I had written ‘now’.
On murder in the first degree
The Law, I knew, is rigid:
Its attitude, if A kills B,
To A is always frigid.
It counts it not a trivial slip
If on behalf of authorship
You liquidate compositors.
This kind of conduct it abhors
And seldom will allow.
Nevertheless, I deemed it best
And in the public interest
To buy a gun, to oil it well,
Inserting what is called a shell,
And go and pot
With sudden shot
This printer who had printed ‘not’
When I had written ‘now’.
I tracked the bounder to his den
Through private information:
I said, ‘Good afternoon’, and then
Explained the situation:
‘I’m not a fussy man,’ I said.
‘I smile when you put “rid” for “red”
And “bad” for “bed” and “hoad” for “head”
And “bolge” instead of “bough”.
When “wone” appears in lieu of “wine”
Or if you alter “Cohn” to “Schine”,
I never make a row.
I know how easy errors are.
But this time you have gone too far
By printing “not” when you knew what
I really wrote was “now”.
Prepare,’ I said, ‘to meet your God
Or, as you’d say, your Goo or Bod,
Or possibly your Gow.’
A few weeks later into court
I came to stand my trial.
The Judge was quite a decent sort.
He said, ‘Well, cocky, I’ll
Be passing sentence in a jiff,
And so, my poor unhappy stiff,
If you have anything to say,
Now is the moment. Fire away.
You have?’
I said, ‘And how!
Me lud, the facts I don’t dispute.
I did, I own it freely, shoot
This printer through the collar stud.
What else could I have done, me lud?
He’d printed “not”…’
The judge said, ‘What!
When you had written “now”?
God bless my soul! Gadzooks!’ said he.
‘The blighters did that once to me.
A dirty trick, I trow.
I hereby quash and override
The jury’s verdict. Gosh!’ he cried.
‘Give me your hand. Yes, I insist,
You splendid fellow! Case dismissed.’
(Cheers, and a Voice ‘Wow-wow!’)
A statue stands against the sky,
Lifelike and rather pretty.
‘Twas recently erected by
The P.E.N. committee.
And many a passer-by is stirred,
For on the plinth, if that’s the word,
In golden letters you may read
‘This is the man who did the deed.
His hand set to the plough,
He did not sheathe the sword, but got
A gun at great expense and shot
The human blot who’d printed “not”
When he had written “now”.
He acted with no thought of self,
Not for advancement, not for pelf,
But just because it made him hot
To think the man had printed “not”
When he had written “now”.
PG Wodehouse'
Brilliant, Richard.
A lesser soul would have simply said: I think there’s there’s a typo.
‘I am exempting any sports in which men and women perform about equally, though I’m not sure which ones’.
Show-jumping and eventing.
Why should the women’s equestrian events be made to allow men to compete in them? (A question in general, not directed at you so much since you are just citing an example.)
If there is no difference in male and female (human) ability, the only reason for having separate women’s events is so that a woman can be assured of winning one of the two trophies, rather than having to take her chances that a man might win the single trophy in a combined sex-blind competition.
There’s nothing wrong with that. More trophies is good. Generates more interest in the sport. Regard women’s equestrienne as an all-female club. They can exclude men if they want to for any reason. The reason doesn’t have to be that a man will always beat them. They just don’t want men. Men who call themselves women are still men. And the men’s clubs can exclude women if they want to.
You just need to have the laws arranged so that a man excluded from the women’s competition can’t sue them for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gender discrimination.
Agreed. Men have no innate advantage in Equestrian events. At least, I don’t think they do.
Quote without comment. Headline in the Colorado Sun today:
‘Colorado may soon add gender identity to death certificates
‘A proposal in the General Assembly would add “gender” to the list of details recorded about the deceased, along with “sex.” The move is already another battle line between conservatives and progressives.’
Here also is the caption to a figure:
‘Supporters say the proposal to add a “gender” category to death certificates will recognize the identity of the deceased and aid medical researchers. The update is meant to recognize the identity of the deceased while also satisfying the needs of researchers.’
You may read the rest of the article for yourselves.
This news brings up yet another identity issue: the words “deceased” and “death” are microaggressions against those identified. We allies of the vitally challenged community demand a more sympathetic language, to do less harm to its subjects, in whatever-they-are certificates.
One of my favorite Monty Python sketches – the Vitally Challenged Parrot