JK Rowling is one reward club sticker away from joining the Full Nazi fan club

[WelshBloke]

it'll still be the most talented, hardest working, and most genetically gifted that win in Elite sports.

You don't think that it's a bit weird that, as a society, we are happy to throw money at the "genetically gifted" to the extent that they are willing to take dubious substances and spend all their time just "playing games" to the extent that it ruins their health?

 

[mikeymikec]

Hey Greeney, which locker room? Which swim team?

What's the point in asking. For some people, the simple answer that fits into their notion of the way things always have been will always be the correct answer, ignoring any evidence to the contrary.

Whether they believe that the Earth is 6000 years old or transgender people have only been around since the '70s, it's just as intellectually bankrupt. The icing on the cake is when they accuse other people of having trouble with viewpoints that don't agree with their own.

Such people remind me of my dad (pre dementia); I used to visit my parents on approximately a weekly basis (they lived nearby), we'd talk about stuff, naturally politics would be a topic at some point during the evening. I'd mention something about American current events, to which my dad would respond along the lines of I'm always ragging on about America, I'd explain my point, to which he'd grudgingly agree, then the next time I visited the process would be repeated. No doubt he forgot entirely about information that didn't agree with his world view.

Greenman apparently honestly believed that despite hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution, gender expression only suddenly "got complicated" in the last fifty. Any honestly interested person would eat crow and review their related beliefs on the topic, but he just carried on repeating his usual anti-trans schtick: Transpeople make sports complicated so just shut them out completely. The nugget of information which states that transgenderism existed earlier in time than the seventies will be ignored like a puzzle piece that doesn't seem to fit anywhere, if it hasn't already.

Of course, he doesn't really care what someone identifies as, nor does he care about sports, yet every time that transgenderism is mentioned, he reaches for the (likely 100% bullshit) story about people pretending to be trans to get a leg up in sports. He doesn't agree that transgenderism should be a thing, so he reaches for what he perceives to be the easiest argument: Sports isn't meant to be fair, except when it is, just as long as it doesn't include transgender people then it's fair. That makes sense, right?

IMO from his comments in his thread, half this bullshit is based on a founding principle that men are superior to women. It's downright offensive to him that a man should compete with those less than themselves. IMO it's absolute lunacy to believe that gender brings some kind of universal unbeatable advantage to warrant such a notion; even if I considered myself to be good at a particular sport, I'd be completely willing to accept the possibility that a woman could absolutely trounce me at that sport. After all, many sports illustrate the point perfectly that "it's not what you've got but what you can do with it", that even the most experienced pros get caught off-guard by an unexpected tactic. Strength and speed do not always win the day.

 

[WelshBloke]

I can't work out what JKs thinking is. I think that she's just fallen down the rabbit hole of arguing with people online and that any valid concerns she might have had have been lost long ago.
It's like Graham Linehan, he's so obsessed with "winning" online that he's gone completely off the rails.

 

[Zorba]

Sure, but your comments here seem a bit contradictory - make it fair by having them divided by sex, but then it's absurd to make it fair for everyone?

The main point is that the incentives have gotten all-out-of-whack, if it's being seriously suggested that people might change gender purely to gain competitive advantage, in something that is just entertainment. The fact that drug use is such an issue suggests that people are already taking such 'entertainment' too seriously. Don't give people incentives to resort to extreme measures to 'win' and it will cease to be a problem.

Encouraging people, from childhood, to take competitive sports too seriously is already a big problem as far as I can see. It has all sorts of damaging consequences, from drug use to sports fans abusing rape victims because their accusations harmed their favorite team''s prospects.

Partly I'm just irritated that so much of the argument over a serious - and already tricky to resolve - socio-political issue like transgender politics gets repeatedly hijacked by the side-issue of competitive sports. Keep sport out of politics. Don't spoil the purity of politics with fractious arguments over sport.

I agree with you that competitive sports have way too much influence. But people do crazy stuff to win, even win the incentives are low. Go to any gym with a nice free weight section and you can likely meet people taking PEDs when they aren't competing in anything. Or research Barkley's Marathons, those people are nuts, and I don't think there are any real incentives for that.

 

[WelshBloke]

I agree with that competitive sports have way too much influence. But people do crazy stuff to win, even win the incentives are low. Go to any gym with a nice free weight section and you can likely meet people taking PEDs when they aren't competing in anything. Or research Barkley's Marathons, those people are nuts, and I don't think there are any real incentives for that.

But, surely, that's a problem with how we perceive sports and not a problem with how we perceive gender?

 

[Zorba]

You don't think that it's a bit weird that, as a society, we are happy to throw money at the "genetically gifted" to the extent that they are willing to take dubious substances and spend all their time just "playing games" to the extent that it ruins their health?

Not really sure your point, sports have been part of human culture for a very long time. I am very against doping, and think it absolutely should be banned and enforced at the highest levels in order to not encourage it at the lower levels.

I agree that there is way too much money in collegiate sports and too much public money in professional sports. But other than that, of people want to pay to watch sports that's their choice.

 

[mikeymikec]

I can't work out what JKs thinking is.

It seems to me that most people want to be accepted somewhere. For some people, it doesn't matter that they're rubbing shoulders with Nazis, being accepted is more important. She would rather rub shoulders with Nazis than reconsider her opinions about transpeople. Consider the alternative: She's ragged on for so long about transpeople that she would have to eat crow if she did a 180; some nobody dweebs on the Internet had a better informed, more tolerant, more egalitarian opinion than her. She's better than those people! She'd never live it down.

I'm surprised that she hasn't started the standard outspoken conservative grift routine which seems to be in fashion these days.

 

[Zorba]

But, surely, that's a problem with how we perceive sports and not a problem with how we perceive gender?

That people will do anything to win? I agree.

 

[pmv]

yes, because the courts are great at understanding social and scientific issues

Also, seems to me that it's a bit like having the courts rule on what the rules of a church or a religion should be.

I'm not sure it's any of the state/legal-system's business deciding on what the rules should be for a sport. Seems a waste of the legal system's time, as much as anything else. Should the courts also rule on each incident of "off side" in soccer, or every argument over whether the ball was over the line in tennis? Will they have to intervene in video games as well?

I don't claim to know what the solution is, I just find myself thinking the world's gone mad. Like right-wing mobs picketing "drag queen story hour" - I don't remember children's pantomimes being scenes of huge political disputes, for example.

I can't work out what JKs thinking is. I think that she's just fallen down the rabbit hole of arguing with people online and that any valid concerns she might have had have been lost long ago.
It's like Graham Linehan, he's so obsessed with "winning" online that he's gone completely off the rails.

Yeah, I just don't see why she keeps picking at that scab/reopening that wound.

Graham Linehan I find quite sad, he's created some great TV and he used to seem quite sharp, but he's let this topic completely derail his life, and I can't work out why.

 

[WelshBloke]

That people will do anything to win? I agree.

Its more that we will cheer them on and encourage them to win at the expense of everything else.

 

[pmv]

I agree with you that competitive sports have way too much influence. But people do crazy stuff to win, even win the incentives are low. Go to any gym with a nice free weight section and you can likely meet people taking PEDs when they aren't competing in anything. Or research Barkley's Marathons, those people are nuts, and I don't think there are any real incentives for that.

Another example that struck me was a case a while back of some semi-professional competitive-not-officially-but-in-practice-yes cycling event, where a large group of them crossed a railway line directly in front of an oncoming train, rather than lose a few seconds of time.

Again, a case of people entirely losing perspective when in the grip of sport-osis, risking death (and that of others) just to "win" an event that wasn't even supposed to be a competition in the first place.

It all just brings back memories of competitive sport at school, and the PE teachers who were all frustrated wanna-be professional football managers, who had zero interest in anyone who wasn't good enough at soccer to indulge their Cup Final fantasies - the rest of us were just left to go to the chip shop while they got on with pretending to be Brian Clough.

It's why I get irritated when conservatives sneer at "liberals" who suggest schools should choose less competitive forms of physical exercise. I happen to think the touchy-feely liberal types (who I don't agree with about many things) are right about that one. Physical activity is good for children, and competition is fine when it comes to things that actually matter in life, but creating competition artificially over things that don't in reality serve a useful purpose - at the expense of ignoring the need for physical activity for the non-elites - does more harm than good.

 

[WelshBloke]

Not really sure your point, sports have been part of human culture for a very long time. I am very against doping, and think it absolutely should be banned and enforced at the highest levels in order to not encourage it at the lower levels.

I agree that there is way too much money in collegiate sports and too much public money in professional sports. But other than that, of people want to pay to watch sports that's their choice.

So whats the point of sports?
Is it to challenge yourself and be the best you can? Because other people having an "advantage" over you wouldnt matter there.
is it to challenge everyone else and be the best in the world? Because that makes sports pointless to 99.999% of people.
Is it just to entertain the masses? Again it doesnt matter whose best then either.


I guess I just dont understand sports as "serious business". Not to the point where it becomes a wedge issue to start discriminating against people anyway.

 

[WelshBloke]

Graham Linehan I find quite sad, he's created some great TV and he used to seem quite sharp, but he's let this topic completely derail his life, and I can't work out why.

Black Books was a masterpiece! It's very sad.

 

[cytg111]

I wish liberals and progressives would leave this one alone. You gonna die on this hill.

 

[pcgeek11]

So is this guy not a dude?
View attachment 96481

Beats the shit out of me. But since you are asking it probably isn't.

The other images had a link exposed that gave it away.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

It seems like you're missing the point of competitive sports. It's not about being inclusive, it's about who is the best. Who is at the pinacol of their field. It celebrates training, determination and physical ability. It can't be fair, it can't be inclusive. The really odd thing here is that I don't care about sports at all. I have zero interest and think most of it is silly, but I do understand the point.

Then why are performance enhancing drugs banned? Explain without using the words fair or equal.

 

[brycejones]

I wish liberals and progressives would leave this one alone. You gonna die on this hill.

Trans persons in sports or trans rights in general?

 

[cytg111]

Trans persons in sports or trans rights in general?

Trans persons in sports. I mean I get it.

BUT.

But try for a second being that centrist independent voter. Christofacist anti abortion clowns to the left of me and trans-women knocking women out in the octagon jokers to the right. Here I am. Stuck in the middle with noone.(RFK?)

I mean, it should be such an easy choice with Roe and all.

So easy to not fuck it up. So why? Baby steps.

 

[brycejones]

Trans persons in sports. I mean I get it.

BUT.

But try for a second being that centrist independent voter. Christofacist anti abortion clowns to the left of me and trans-women knocking women out in the octagon jokers to the right. Here I am. Stuck in the middle with noone.(RFK?)

I mean, it should be such an easy choice with Roe and all.

So easy to not fuck it up. So why? Baby steps.

I think the individual governing bodies need to figure it out for their respective sports.

 

[Zorba]

So whats the point of sports?
Is it to challenge yourself and be the best you can? Because other people having an "advantage" over you wouldnt matter there.
is it to challenge everyone else and be the best in the world? Because that makes sports pointless to 99.999% of people.
Is it just to entertain the masses? Again it doesnt matter whose best then either.


I guess I just dont understand sports as "serious business". Not to the point where it becomes a wedge issue to start discriminating against people anyway.

In competitive sports the point is to be better than the competition. We create division in sports to make it the competition more even. In nearly every sport men have a massive advantage over women, which is why we divide by sex. In the US this was so important to feminist we passed Title 9 to ensure access to women's sports.

Unfortunately not every person can play every sport, many medicines are banned from elite sports as an example. At the end of the day, I think it is up to governing bodies of sports to decide who can and can't play in what division.

In the spirit of Title 9, though, the impact on women in sports should be the most important question. If transwomen can be included in a fair way, the should be, if they would have an unfair advantage they shouldn't be.

The idea that we should all just stop carrying about women having a fair shot in sports for the benefit of a very small minority of the population, is right up there with we should abolish legal marriage because religious people try to define it as heterosexual marriage only.

 

[Zorba]

Then why are performance enhancing drugs banned? Explain without using the words fair or equal.

He already said it: "It celebrates training, determination and physical ability." PEDs shortcut that. Further they are dangerous to the athletes and allowing them would create a situation where everyone had to be taking them. Further, elites using them would strongly encourage or force their use at younger and younger ages.

Most importantly, the paying public has made it clear they prefer clean sports.

Finally, you can be for fairness in competition and also understand that genetics, talent, and willingness to train aren't evenly distributed. Fairness in competition does not mean that everyone should have be able to compete in any given competition.

 

[pmv]

The idea that we should all just stop carrying about women having a fair shot in sports for the benefit of a very small minority of the population, is right up there with we should abolish legal marriage because religious people try to define it as heterosexual marriage only.

But only a small minority of the population care about these competitive (generally elite professional or faux-amateur) sports. Why should we all stop caring about transgender people, or caring about the racist bigoted right using that as a wedge issue to gain power (with bad effects for so many other groups), for the benefit of a very small number of sports-obsessives?

Just let the sports authorities concerned kludge something together to deal with the issue as best they can, and move on to things that actually matter. It's absolutely ridiculous that things like addressing climate change, or preserving democracy itself, are potentially put at risk because of the anxieties of a tiny number of people obsessed with who can run or swim the fastest.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

He already said it: "It celebrates training, determination and physical ability." PEDs shortcut that. Further they are dangerous to the athletes and allowing them would create a situation where everyone had to be taking them. Further, elites using them would strongly encourage or force their use at younger and younger ages.

Most importantly, the paying public has made it clear they prefer clean sports.

Finally, you can be for fairness in competition and also understand that genetics, talent, and willingness to train aren't evenly distributed. Fairness in competition does not mean that everyone should have be able to compete in any given competition.

But I thought sports were about who was best, physically, genetically, whatever? What about who's best at handling PED's? Greenman said it can't be fair, it can't be inclusive, so let's make it unfair and exclusive.

If the argument is distasteful, is it 'competitive' that M. Phelps got that fishsuit from the year 2100 apparently an Olympics or two back? IIRC he shattered a few records wearing that thing, and while he probably would have won regardless it clearly gave him an edge. Is that okay? If so, are other 'prosthetics' okay? Where's this imaginary line between competitive and fairness and 'not allowed' and why does it always seem to come down to what's between someone's legs?

 

[cytg111]

I know two young trans men, both of them thinks its bs competing in opposing biological teams.

From perspective of the Trans community are we sure this is a problem that needs championing?

 

[Zorba]

But only a small minority of the population care about these competitive (generally elite professional or faux-amateur) sports. Why should we all stop caring about transgender people, or caring about the racist bigoted right using that as a wedge issue to gain power (with bad effects for so many other groups), for the benefit of a very small number of sports-obsessives?

Just let the sports authorities concerned kludge something together to deal with the issue as best they can, and move on to things that actually matter. It's absolutely ridiculous that things like addressing climate change, or preserving democracy itself, are potentially put at risk because of the anxieties of a tiny number of people obsessed with who can run or swim the fastest.

I've said all along in this thread it should be the governing bodies of the sports. Also LOL @ "only a small minority of the population caring" about sports.

Telling women that transwomen's rights to compete are more important than their rights to compete is not a great political move, IMHO.

Tell me, why was Title 9 so important to liberals in the 70s, and apparently not all important to liberals today?