theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
It's supposed to help you understand why you should care about the concerns of people who do take sports seriously.
Transwomen are not Women - Part 15
- Thread starter d4m10n
- Start date
Manopolus
Metaphorical Anomaly
And it would be somehow "caring" of me to input my opinions into their hobby that I completely lack personal interest in? Strange sense of morality, there. Not sure I agree. I'm not sure that's what you meant, but it's as close as I can come to your suggested conclusion.
I suppose my own way is a matter of trusting that those who actually have an interest in the matter can resolve it among themselves. Why would they need a complete outsider to get involved?
I mean, if it was me making the decision, I'd just get rid of gender-specific sports entirely. But that's coming from the perspective that sport is entirely pointless. I don't expect anyone actually involved in them to agree with me. Why do you demand that I put that perspective out there? I'm quite aware that it isn't a popular point of view, and I'm entirely willing to forego having any input. My opinion is completely irrelevant, and I'm fully aware of that.
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theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
You could start by listening to their concerns about their careers and life's work.
You could then continue by remembering this is a question of trans rights in public policy.
And you could from there conclude that at the very least, women who care about sports should have legal standing to deny participation to males if those women so choose.
You could manage at least that much, yes?
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
I guess that if you live in a world where you are so socially inept that you don't care about anything or anyone unless it directly affects you, then your attitude is unsurprising.
Manopolus
Metaphorical Anomaly
Okay... if I must have an opinion... like I edited in, here it is (in different words, but more-or-less the same):
If this is just going to make people whine and cry over and over it all the time, then maybe the best answer is that we just don't do sports at all... particularly not in the context of taxpayer-funded activities. I'm not saying we should outlaw sports. I'm just saying that the government doesn't need to be involved in them whatsoever.
There's my opinion. Happy? I suspect that you won't like this better than just staying out of it... and it's not a strong opinion, anyway. I wouldn't lobby anybody to make it happen. I just don't see much reason for the government to be involved in sport competitions. That's not what the government is for.
But yeah... that's how you solve it. Get the damn government out of sports entirely, including the funding and organization for them. How's that for "small government," ya wannabe conservative?
Please note that this would not actually extend to physical education. It's entirely possible to have P.E. without having competitions about who's best at playing with their balls. Physical improvement does not need to include competition against others. Perhaps they could even make it educational rather than being mere forced exercise. You know, like, add a little science in there.
...but keep in mind that I only have an opinion about this at your insistence. I don't care enough to actually want to be involved with reforming the system, and I still decline to choose between your side and the windmill you're tilting at. There are actually many possible ways to look at it. It's not a mere choice between one side or the other. You don't get to do all my thinking for me, and then demand that I choose sides.
But yeah... the clear answer is to completely deinstitutionalize sport so that people can play (or not) by whatever rules they want to.
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d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
You're hoping to roll back Title IX protections for women in sport? Bold move.
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Manopolus
Metaphorical Anomaly
Nope. Read again.
I'm looking to kick sports out of our government institutions (schools) entirely, and fully privatize them. No longer will teams even be chosen by what government-run institutions they attend. They won't be run by government employees. Sports won't even be on campus. It's not a punishment. My idea is that they never should have been there in the first place, and they've certainly grown beyond what was originally intended. Collegiate sports were never intended to be big business, and institutionally funded and organized sports were certainly never intended as a training ground for professional sports.
That's what I mean by deinstitutionalization. If people want to play sports, that's fine. But they don't need to do so in the context of a school. As far as I'm concerned, sports never belonged there, and they don't need to be funded or organized by governments.
Professional and casual sports aren't even subject to Title IX, so this would just make the statute irrelevant. I suppose it could still exist, but it wouldn't apply to anything.
But yeah, I do realize how "extreme" this is in the current context. It wouldn't be particularly extreme if sports were never there to begin with, but getting rid of them now would somehow be extreme. Keep in mind that I was perfectly fine with having no opinion or input at all, though. But if I am required to have an opinion for some reason, this is the one. This is what makes sense to me. Playing with your balls is clearly not an intellectual pursuit. Exercise science, kinetics, etc. can certainly help you with sports, but those sciences can also exist independently of competitive sport. There is no academic validity for institutionally sponsored sporting events.
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theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Do you think women's organizations should have legal standing to bar men from joining, regardless of the men's self-professed gender identity?
Because that's all I'm really asking for.
With one caveat: Through federal funding, and further through Title IX, the government has an interest in and responsibility for collegiate sports administration. Thus, while I agree that the government can and should stay out of it in general, when it comes to things like the NCAA, it's entirely appropriate for the government to set policy. That can be directly, through regulation, or indirectly through funding.
I'm piqued, though, by your sudden love of laissez-faire, unregulated marketplaces. What else do you think the government should stay out of, on account of it makes people whine and cry over and over it all the time? Discrimination in employment? Wages? Journalism? Pharmaceuticals? Healthcare?
Also we still seem to be confronted by your apparent dismissal of women and things that concern women.
Manopolus
Metaphorical Anomaly
This is where you seem to be misunderstanding me. I'm saying that the NCAA shouldn't exist. This marriage of academia with sport competitions doesn't need to exist at all. I don't think it SHOULD exist. Plato wasn't a basketball star. Sport doesn't need a free ride in academia to legitimize its popularity. It doesn't belong there, and only causes problems.
It's mere entertainment. It has no academic value.
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theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Do you think women's organizations should have legal standing to bar men from joining, regardless of the men's self-professed gender identity?
There's more to sports than mere entertainment.
Manopolus
Metaphorical Anomaly
Again, I don't think the "women's organizations" of which you speak should even exist outside of the -- for-profit, not publically funded or organized -- sector, in which case they can already do whatever the hell they want without asking my permission... mainly because I'm not paying for it.
NASCAR is not subject to Title IX, and nor is any other sport which exists entirely outside of academia.
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theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
The question of whether they can do whatever they want is central to the debate about trans rights in public policy. On one side are people that say that men should be legally entitled to join women's organizations, enter women's spaces, compete in women's sports, etc., and that women should be legally prohibited from keeping them out.
On the other side are people who say that women should have the legal protection to keep men out.
Do you think women should have the legal protection to keep men out if they want to?
Manopolus
Metaphorical Anomaly
False dichotomy. There is no requirement that I choose a side. My only "side" is that they need to stop subsidizing these things with my tax money. Once they do that, I have no legitimate interest in the matter, since I neither watch sports nor participate in them. Why would I care about what other people do for a hobby? It doesn't affect me, and I don't consider it to be an important societal activity.
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theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
I'm not saying there's a requirement. I'm explaining the question I'm asking, since you seemed to have trouble understanding what it actually was.
Also, as far as public policy goes, it's a pretty true dichotomy. Either a thing is legal, or it isn't. Either you think it should be legal, or you don't.
I do think it's kind of weird that your whole take on trans rights in public policy is to ignore every single aspect of that issue, in favor of simply dismissing athletic competition as unimportant and of no interest to a democratic government. If you care even less about trans rights than you do about women's sports, why are you even bothering with this thread? By your own expression, it has nothing, and less than nothing, of interest or concern for you. But somehow here you are anyway.
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Manopolus
Metaphorical Anomaly
Good question. You'd have to find my first post for the answer to that, I suppose. I suspect that it wasn't particularly insightful. Everything since has been merely responding to the insistence that I simply MUST care about it. No. I don't have to care about it. As a matter of fact, my general reaction to the issue is that I'm mostly just annoyed from all the noise.
And I'm pretty clear on the fact that it's overblown. It's not a frequent issue. If you ask a random person who is worked up about it, you'll find that the issue isn't something which currently affects their lives. We aren't having an epidemic of trans people who are interested in sports. Literally every single instance that happens ends up in the news somewhere... and there aren't very many.
Furthermore, nothing has changed with Title IX which makes it a requirement that female teams accept male members. As far as I know, there have been no court cases establishing that. So why must the law change? These are random localized events where a single person makes a value judgment. Nothing has changed with national policy.
There are also matters relating to "trans" which aren't associated with sports. I think I probably tried to address the issue while explicitly stating that I don't give a crap about sports.
Of course, the hilarious thing I haven't mentioned yet is that I was on a "co-ed" team that played against all-female teams in 5th grade (5+6 grade bball, but I only did it in 5th grade) basketball in 1979-1980 or so. It wasn't because I was trans. It was because the school was so small that we didn't have enough girls to form a team. And, of course, in 5th and 6th grades, the girls are typically bigger than the boys... so it wasn't an advantage.
The boys had their own full team, so I initially hated the idea, of course, like most boys would... but they eventually convinced me to go along with it. It basically just meant that I got to play the entire game (we had one sub in reserve, but that's it)... and wouldn't have if I was on the boy's team.
And that's all irrelevant, of course. It's just a memory that pops up every time the subject is discussed.
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smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
If you don't care about it, then don't participate.
It affects mine.
We are having a lot more than we used to. Especially, we how have fully intact biological males being allowed to compete in women's sports based only on they own claim they are women. This is something that has never happened previously.
Of course the laws doesn't say that. The drafters probably never even considered the bat-**** craziness of males claiming they are female on their own word alone, and expecting to have all the rights and privileges of being female.
At this point, I have to wonder why you even post here, since you claim to care so little? Tell me, have you ever heard of a member that used to post here called "bob-the-coward"?
Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
No, it's not intended to make you personally care about it. It was intended to give you an understanding of why so many people do care about it, and the role it plays within our species and societies.
I don't care about fashion, but I understand the role that fashion plays in society. Heck, I don't care about religion, but I understand why it exists and the role it plays in social cohesion.
d4m10n
Penultimate Amazing
Why would private schools (e.g. Ivy League) have to give up sports under your plan to outlaw sports at state institutions?
smartcooky
Penultimate Amazing
Whose argument are you referring to? Using the quote function might help.