This Is Fine

@GodEmperorDune sry I don't like CNN can you find another source

You are being incredibly petulant and, if I may quote you, "willfully obtuse".

@GnomeSlice I'm sorry people got mad at your transphobe clickbait article.

you are perceiving a false double standard

GodEmperorDune

@GnomeSlice thedailybeast.com/…

9:08 PM

Thus far, you have continually refused to engage on Breitbait's rather infamous history of straight-up lying and repeatedly assumed that we just "don't like Breitbart". For someone who claims to value reasoned discussion, you are getting rather close to operating out of bad faith.

GodEmperorDune

@Yuuki to be fair I called out a link to milo’s site dangerous, not breitbart

@GodEmperorDune this is something else

user15026

Basically, it's not about not liking it, it's more that we keep showing ways they've been untruthful, extremely biased, etc.

GodEmperorDune

I mean I agree with what y’all are saying but I have specifically told @GnomeSlice that I’m not going to click on a dangerous link; I assumed that was what he was refrancing

Nope, there was a bit of a brouhaha several minutes ago when he posted a Breitbart article, to which the response was generally "can you not post Breitbart because they have a documented tendency to lie and twist facts" and it was misinterpreted as "Breitbart sucks because they lean conservative and what about CNN and the liberal bias of the mainstream media".

9:17 PM

Who gives a fuck what website I posted it was the best article on the matter I could find and this is a news room not an angry yelling room

> "news room not an angry yelling room"
> posts Breitbart articles

i would respect that more if you didn't always link to these things anyways

'these things' being what

Milo, Breitbart

There was some super Christian website I saw that has an article on it, faithnews or something would you prefer that

9:18 PM

@GnomeSlice what makes you feel that that was the best article? Just curious

Not my fault if sources you like don't report it

@GnomeSlice Facts matter, and there is really no sense in discussing a topic when the only source we have doesn't care about facts and it simply pushing an agenda. Breitbart is not a news site, it's not even close to comparable to mainstream news.

It in fact matters very much what website you post if this is a news discussion room because discussion needs to be rooted in facts. And Breitbart has repeatedly demonstrated that they don't care about facts.

@Chippies some of them mentioned like a petition, some had interviews with other students, the brietbart one had both of these things idk it was the longest and most comprehensive

@Yuuki so is that article innacurate

2 hours ago, by quartata

""""'biological girls</html> bolded in the headline was enough for me to realize i had made a dreadful mistake

9:19 PM

@GnomeSlice ah, so it just had more info, makes sense

Yes

That specific article was pushing an agenda in its writing

Just because it's longer doesn't mean it actually contains more information

Oh like the shit some of you clowns post doesn't push agendas

This is not entirely based on other things

9:20 PM

Everyone has an agenda

Allow me to clarify. A bigoted agenda

Which part of the article is offending you

I spent like 10 minutes trying to find the best one to share here

And that's the one I decided on

@GnomeSlice Okay, you have said this several times and I really don't want to repeat myself. This is not about what sources we subjectively favor or disfavor. Breitbart has had repeated documented instances where they have objectively outright lied and therefore anything they posted these days really shouldn't be trusted (a la the boy who cried wolf).

@Yuuki so is the article innaccurate

@Yuuki And that point should be engaged with, not ignored to rant more about CNN not being perfect or even particularly good.

9:22 PM

> An official for the New England championships defended the move to allow stronger, faster, bigger boys to compete as girls.

this part in the article seems unnecessary, imho

As if we don't already bash CNN in here.

""unnecessary

lmao

that's the nicest way I've ever seen to couch transphobia

@quartata Well said.

So there's an unnecessary biased line better find a WHOLE NEW FUCKING WEBSITE that fits your criteria then

@quartata I'm not trying to start fights here, so, yeah :P

9:23 PM

What are you five, can you not read something without being influenced by bias

Everything has bias

Actually, the Associated Press is generally pretty good for this.

user15026

Okay, @GnomeSlice, I get you have a lot of...emotions about this, but please cool the language.

I can only find right wing sources reporting on it so guess what it's gonna have right wing bias

user15026

There's no need to attack people like this.

I'm the one being attacked

This is such a stupid trivial non issue

9:24 PM

I googled "trans girl wins track" and found multiple articles about it

Yeah me too

@GnomeSlice if only extremist right-wing sites write about it, that might tell you something about the topic by itself

here, CBS

That's how I found the brietbart one I had to scroll way down

newyork.cbslocal.com/2018/06/13/…

done

9:25 PM

@MadScientist which is? Also who said anything about extreme

that's centrist

@GnomeSlice Breitbart is extremist right-wing

@GnomeSlice You are not being honest if you think that Breitbart is moderate. They're proud of being "extreme."

So all the other results are also extreme

I literally just linked to CBS? It's not a whole lot better but it is a thing

9:27 PM

You guys care more about who says things than what is said

That's fucked

@GnomeSlice literally what was said in their article was hateful what the hell are you talking about

No, we care about how they're said

@Unionhawk which part

5 mins ago, by Chippies

> An official for the New England championships defended the move to allow stronger, faster, bigger boys to compete as girls.

8 mins ago, by quartata

2 hours ago, by quartata

""""'biological girls</html> bolded in the headline was enough for me to realize i had made a dreadful mistake

What is hateful about any of that

Wtf

9:28 PM

well-there-it-is.gif

...care to rephrase that?

breitbart.com/tech/2015/12/08/…

this is exhausting

user15026

" stronger, faster, bigger boys to compete as girls." -> they're not boys. They're girls.

I think we're done here

9:29 PM

Just to remind people what kind of crap Breitbart likes to publish

Okay so now I see what the issue is

This has been reduced into argumentum ad nauseam

@GnomeSlice I don't think you have because you seem to be doing your level best to not see the issue.

You guys aren't okay with anyone discussing physical advantage in sports wrt gender

Nope, didn't think so.

9:30 PM

Which is what it was about so I guess that's the end of that discussion anyway

@GnomeSlice Quite the red herring, considering it's in response to you asking what's hateful about the article calling them boys

I think the past hour has been a perfectly good example of what happens you use a problematic source to start what would otherwise be a valid discussion.

@Ash k well like they haven't had any surgery or hormone therapy and they're obviously stronger and faster than the other entrants, and that means two girls got cut from advancing because they were allowed to compete in a field where they have a advantage

If you really want to hear me talk about the issue: I think it's dumb that these kind of sports are split into male/female anyways, why can't it be heavyweight/lightweight if the problem really is physical advantages

And that's what think should be discussed

9:32 PM

@Unionhawk Agreed, and it never changes. It's like an "Everybody Loves Raymond" episode. I save my eyeballs for shows with character development.

user15026

@GnomeSlice right, okay, but the language that article uses to discuss it is offensive.

and also just objectively incorrect as it turns out

user15026

So its hard to give the topic a fair going over when it's presented with inflammatory language

user15026

because that matters

@quartata This is pretty much all there is to say about, like, what actually happened

9:33 PM

@quartata Yup, not to mention that sports will never be entirely fair, or even mostly fair.

user15026

How someone presents a topic and the words they use affects how people will interact with it - you cannot expect civil discourse from something that is not presented with civility

2 hours ago, by Yuuki

I mean, there is an interesting question about gender division in modern competitive sports being an almost entirely binary interpretation of gender in conflict with a growing nuanced view of the gender spectrum.

I think it's pretty clear that we're open to discussion on the role of gender in sports.

@Yuuki yeah sorry I forgot you already pretty much did that

it helps to circle back when we've been literally doing this shit for 2 hours

Here's a tip. If you're concerned about bias and the possibility that a source is pushing a narrative, try to find an AP (Associated Press) article.

They're generally really good about only reporting facts.

Really, the best thing you can do is read a bunch of sources and collate commonalities between them but not everybody has that kind of time.

And you really should take into account a source's history.

A broken clock may be right twice a day but that doesn't mean you should always check it.

9:41 PM

@Yuuki this advice doesn't really work for sharing articles though

@Yuuki He did, they were just all bad apparently

@Chippies This is where the "describe your articles" thing I always push comes into effect.

Breitbart is a hate site used as a vehicle by the alt-right. Full stop. There's no debate on that, and frankly anyone who denies that or frequently visits their site is viewed by me with the utmost suspicion. Heck, BuzzFeed released an article on this very thing with docuemnation from Breitbart:

Oct 5 '17 at 21:56, by Tim Stone

For all you folks who love to joke about "fake news" while your colleagues are literally feeding shit to Breitbart https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart-and-milo-smuggled-white-nationalism

Tweeted by roseveleth on October 5, 2017 at 9:27 PM

You can find examples of this all over the site. Both in the content they post, and how they present that content.

I mean an example of an article was posted above

I feel like we don't need to explain why Milo is ridiculous but

Except we kind of do

9:44 PM

Faithful recounting of facts should be a minimum in considering sources. Any concerns about slant or agenda should come afterward.

I think GnomeSlice might relate to this explanation best: reddit.com/r/JoeRogan/comments/5v8wbn/…

Frankly Breitbart is so damn bad I've seriously considered bringing forth a rule that it's just not allowed to be shared in this room

@Wipqozn No we really don't. We can just link back to when it was explained to this same person a few months ago, and a few months before that.

user15026

@quartata Maybe that's the issue - so far I've just heard mostly "they're garbage" which okay sure, but maybe if we make it very clear why, so it can't be argued as purely "that's just your opinion"

@Wipqozn I would approve of that.

9:45 PM

In fact, maybe I should actually discuss that with the other site mods right now, because I'm sick of seeing that hateful site posted in here time and time again

(quote sourced from rationalwiki.org/wiki/Milo_Yiannopoulos#cite_note-53, don't @ me if the subreddit sucks)

If you can't tell that Breitbart is garbage by reading it, I'm not sure what one could do

@quartata Oh no I'm sure r/joerogan is an absolutely phenomenal subreddit

@Ash I'm 90% sure we've had at least some cogent explanations of this in the past.

like the rest of reddit

lol

user15026

9:46 PM

Alright, unpopular opinion time, hold tight with me here for a minute or two.

user15026

This room is full of a lot of people who share a lot of the same views. That's fine, that's what happens when you stick people who share similar interests into a space. Except sometimes, we get people who don't share those opinions. I think there's room for some "oh hey here is a clear explanation of why this is a harmful thing" without just yelling about how a thing is awful (and thus also the people who link it/read it are awful" without hitting a "we gotta like be nice to the Nazis, guys"

user15026

Admittedly if we keep having to say it over and over there's a limit on ways we can say the same thing and have it not just be a continue dumpster fire

user15026

I am tired that we keep having to have the Brietbart conversation. I am tired of it being framed as "you just don't like differing views" - I'm all for someone challenging my worldview (sometimes, with respect). I am not for being pushed to give space and attention to something that continually exists to cause harm and dissent to people.

To be entirely fair, I can see why @GnomeSlice would be frustrated that we keep talking about how terrible Breitbart is than the topic of the article. That's legitimate to a degree. But then the solution would be to stop linking Breitbart because this has happened multiple times in the past and it always ends up at this point where we talk about how bad Breitbart is and maybe use a different source because every time Breitbart is linked, we always spin off to how it's so demonstrably bad.

user15026

So no, this isn't just a left vs right issue, please stop using that framework.

user15026

9:51 PM

Please stop insisting Breitbart does not have a very clear and damaging agenda in how they phrase things, especially around queer/trans issues.

user15026

We continually explain why it's harmful, and honestly, that's exhausting.

And to a cynical person, maybe that's why people continue to link Breitbart. Because it is so demonstrably bad and they can reliably derail any conversation into "Breitbart is bad" and then claim that people won't confront their bias.

"exhausting" is a key point

user15026

Addendum: If you bring news etc into here, be fully prepared to be challenged on not only the news itself, but also the source you are using because that matters too.

8

user15026

(This goes for any side on a stance).

user15026

9:53 PM

News is inherently biased in some way because we're all terrible broken humans who have opinions and agendas, and it is almost impossible to report the news without letting those human bits bleed into it.

user15026

Okay. I think that's all the words I have on this for now.

@Ash Yes, this may be true but the problem is that this point is always overemphasized in favor of ignoring "some news is waaaay more biased than others".

user15026

Oh, 1000% agree

There's also an element of "causes harm" that's unique here as well

"Everyone has bias and therefore everyone is equally right or wrong" is common and equally problematic.

user15026

9:55 PM

Yeah, I overgeneralized at the end

Bias is unavoidable. But we can still try to use sources that at least make an effort to present facts, and that are not outright propaganda or hate speech

user15026

(There is a reason I presented that as a general addendum, please don't let those words negate the "hey I'm agreeing it's a trashfire" above)

user15026

If you bring in something that actively hurts people as a form of "I'm just exercising my right to report the news", and try to pretend that the stuff that is hurting people *isn't there", that's a big problem

@Ash I thought you did a fantastic job of outlining things, thank you.

@puzzlepiece87 the voice of reason has logged on

9:59 PM

@quartata I just was saying thanks because it took a lot of effort to write the above and I thought it was well done.

@Ash can not disagree more tbh

@puzzlepiece87 So was I

@quartata Cool :)

In my reading Ash was drawing the line for one audience and did a good job of that without getting too bogged down in the (important) subpoints that have already been discussed each of the other times with that audience.

@GnomeSlice I'd rather not make any assumptions so I'd like to clarify: are you saying that when it comes to presenting news, the quality of the source doesn't matter?

Or rather that it's only important that discussion be raised and it doesn't matter how it's raised?

@Yuuki this

10:06 PM

That's a fair point to consider but as someone who likes to have substantive discussions, I actually consider it pretty important to consider how you bring up a topic because the manner in which you do so will influence people. It's a bit like setting up a stage. It's important that you do your best to set up a level stage if you really want a productive conversation.

Consider this: did you anticipate the reaction that you got from linking Breitbart? If you did know that linking it would result in derailing the discussion, but that's not what you wanted to happen, why did you do it?

user15026

You can say all you want that you're just bringing news in and that you looked at sources and decided this was the best one, but when what you think is the best unbiased source you can find continually causes strife and upset, you gotta kinda wonder maybe that miiiiiight have a part in what's going on?

@murgatroid99 I did not anticipate that, no

@GnomeSlice I have trouble believing this because this is not the first or second time you've posted a Breitbart link and the same discussion always surfaces. Perhaps not to this degree, but it always happens.

That's not my fault

10:16 PM

When you've done it this many times, it kinda does become your fault.

No

Yes

Fine let's all just go back to posting tweets of funny memes about donald trump then

@murgatroid99 @Yuuki 100% agreed.

@GnomeSlice That's an even more ridiculous false dichotomy than your previous one

10:18 PM

@GnomeSlice I take offense to that. Sometimes we post tweets of funny memes about Mike Pence too.

Speaking of derailed discussions, @Ash @Wipqozn, you have my support if you want to move forward with disallowing Breitbart links from the room.

we mostly post Trumps tweets directly, and they're really not funny

The other conversation that's going on here has happened and will continue to happen over and over again, but disallowing Breitbart links would be a positive, substantive change.

I think it's pretty clear you guys aren't going to be convinced that that entire exchange was really dumb so why don't we just drop it

@puzzlepiece87 yeah no, we're not doing that

what were we doing before this even

10:20 PM

Are you kidding lol, 'this news is okay but not this one' is a terrible idea and a slippery slope

@quartata donald trump memes

...no it was something about Peterson

@GnomeSlice I'm sorry people didn't like your transphobic article.

Lol man this is why I don't talk to you any more

Go back to yelling about dumb shit on twitter

@GnomeSlice How about this: independent of the political spectrum, let's not post articles from sources full of bigotry, hatred, and lies?

You know, the slippery slope is a fallacy. It's weird that it's used in the way it is now, it's basically the same thing as the bootstrap fallacy.

10:22 PM

@quartata Peterson, Breitbart, a long discussion with the single audience, possible talk about disallowing Breitbart links, Ash drawing a line, more discussion with the single audience. So I'm rewinding but not as far back as you.

@GnomeSlice It's not my fault you're trying to start a conversation about the role of gender in sports by posting an article that misgenders a trans girl to make some point about how the trans agenda is ruining high school sports.

It literally isn't

That's all you

38 mins ago, by Wipqozn

Frankly Breitbart is so damn bad I've seriously considered bringing forth a rule that it's just not allowed to be shared in this room

^ This is what I'd like to get back to as time allows for @Wipqozn and @Ash

@Unionhawk it didn't misgender them that's part of why i picked that article

it says 'she'

for every time either of them is mentioned

If we decide to ban Breitbart because it has a documented history of more than just problematic reporting, we're not going to "slippery slope" our way into banning every new source.

because this is the most important part of reading news in 2018

user15026

10:25 PM

"
" stronger, faster, bigger boys to compete as girls." -> they're not boys. They're girls."

guess they accidentally a word, big whoop

it says 'biological boys' in the next paragraph

No they definitely purposefully a word

oh no well it's gotta be fake news then

you guys are acting like children

user15026

Okay. Honestly, I am kind tired of this.

YEAH ME TOO

10:27 PM

@GnomeSlice It's hateful is what it is

Jesus christ

are you fucking serious

@Yuuki I'd be happy to slippery slope my way into banning every outlet with a documented problematic relationship to the facts, whichever side of the aisle they're on.

user15026

I am tired of the fact that even though a lot of people in this room are trying to come into this with good faith explanations, you refuse to listen to them with any sort of respect or consideration.

They haven't had any hormone therapy or however it works so yeah they are gonna be stronger and faster and I think the people complaining that it's not fair have valid concerns

I'm assuming that @Ash, @Wipqozn, and I are in agreement about banning Breitbart so I'm considering that a quorum.

Is that so fucked up of a concept?

10:28 PM

@Yuuki Good. I'm glad to hear that. Way more productive than doing this circle every few months.

room topic changed to This Is Fine: The news discussion offshoot of the Bridge. Stars reserved for news items. Discussion should primarily be about news topics. Don't post links to Breitbart articles. [eternal-2016] [-gaming]

yeah im not following that

Then I'll kick-mute you every time you do it.

user15026

Alright no

Put it this way, some student who isn't really trans could just claim they are and get into competing on sports teams where they have an advantage because it seems like they didn't require any sort of anything from them

user15026

10:29 PM

Everyone needs to chill the hell out right now.

they would have been much better matched against male competitors

@GnomeSlice The problem is while this may be true, to say she is a boy is factually incorrect.

who cares, it's not the point of the article

Actually it is. The article tries very hard to make it the point.

and you're just halting any kind of discussion over trivial semantics

10:29 PM

It's not trivial

user15026

@GnomeSlice No. This stuff matters

@GnomeSlice This is false, we've already said what needs to be said about it

semantics then

It absolutely matters

jesus christ what is wrong with you people

10:29 PM

57 mins ago, by quartata

If you really want to hear me talk about the issue: I think it's dumb that these kind of sports are split into male/female anyways, why can't it be heavyweight/lightweight if the problem really is physical advantages

55 mins ago, by Yuuki

2 hours ago, by Yuuki

I mean, there is an interesting question about gender division in modern competitive sports being an almost entirely binary interpretation of gender in conflict with a growing nuanced view of the gender spectrum.

2 entire years ago

user15026

Alright - we've said everything I think we can say about all of this - we are going in endless circles.

@quartata Interesting idea. I feel like there's no easy answer tbh

user15026

I respectfully ask that we drop this particular thing entirely as it is very clear that there is a distinct lack of respect and civility.

A similar thing happened in weightlifting in some european country, a trans woman broke all the previous female weightlifting records in like one competition and a bunch of people were mad

Definitely not an easy issue to resolve

Civil rights have like a new prominence in global culture and some stuff definitely has to change imo

user15026

If you cannot bring articles in here without understanding that people can and will challenge not only the news but how it is presented, then perhaps you should not be bringing things in to this room.

user15026

10:31 PM

How something is said matters just as much as what is said, full stop.

Fine, find me an article you're happy with and we can go from there

user15026

This room is intended to allow respectful discourse - this does not mean that no one will challenge your views.

what does posting an article have to do with 'my views'

4 hours ago, by GnomeSlice

Tough situation

Here, here are 'my views'

on the article

Nobody challenged that

user15026

@GnomeSlice where you get the article from - you're bringing in articles with very severe biases and trying to pretend that the news source does not have them.

user15026

Please stop that.

10:33 PM

It's literally just a news story

I'm going to engage in news sources in particular because dropping topics has proven repeatedly to not be a solution for this particular problem. I really, really don't want to have another discussion about Breitbart and similar sources. We'll inevitably come back to this when another Breitbart link is posted. Because it inevitably will.

Anyway if we could get back to the actual discussion that would be great

I'm really tired of this

user15026

@GnomeSlice So are we!

So quit doing it

fuck

@Yuuki Yes, and to be clear, Breitbart probably isn't the only one that will need to be on the list. We've had multiple discussions about Dangerous also.

What am I doing wrong, I thought quoting yourself was :(message id)?

10:36 PM

you have to actually have a message

no it's the whole url

9 mins ago, by puzzlepiece87

@Yuuki I'd be happy to slippery slope my way into banning every outlet with a documented problematic relationship to the facts, whichever side of the aisle they're on.

ah thanks

oh

Oh, I mixed it up with replying to yourself.

why don't we just post every mirror of every piece of news we can find from now on and let the users sift through it to find one they like

10:37 PM

@GnomeSlice Sure! Let's start with: This is about the third time you've posted something to this effect (maybe second, I'm not sure). Why do you find trans people existing and participating in sports (with varying degrees of participating with their gender) to be such an important issue, and what would you do about it

And here we go again with you confusing subjective preference with an actual documented-by-a-lot-of-verifiably-reliable-sources problem with reporting the truth.

I'm on board with approximately what @quartata proposed, but even that is slightly tricky

All right, time to go home. Thanks to everyone for setting a good standard for the room, I appreciate it.

how do you measure such things, etc

and it depends on the sport too

@Unionhawk I dunno if 'important' is the right word because I mean how important are sports after all

10:40 PM

I'm not supporting a ban on Breitbart because I don't like it, I'm supporting a ban on Breitbart because it has repeatedly lied and distorted the truth. I don't like The Hill either because they have a conservative-leaning bias but at least they seem to attempt to report the truth.

@Yuuki Bold prediction, @Unionhawk's invitation to discuss the supposed issue gets as much attention as the previous two invitations in favor of ignoring the hatred in one's favored news source.

but I dunno to some people it's their lives so I guess sorta important

@Yuuki Yup, there it goes.

idk man those two girls who got bumped out of advancing last minute because they let the trans people compete just... idk it seems shitty for them

They let girls compete

is what they did

10:41 PM

you and I both know those two girls had a distinct advantage

But it's the only framework they had

just like the weightlifter

Later all, best wishes for the evening.

To make them compete as boys would be to deny their identity, and return to the opposite issue, of the trans masc wrestler forced to compete as a girl even though he was not

@GnomeSlice Lots of people have distinct advantages over others in sports. Gender isn't even necessarily the biggest differentiator.

10:43 PM

It might deny their gender identity, but it would put them in fair matchups. Matching sports by gender is stupid anyway, but we do it because males are the larger of the species

@murgatroid99 that's true, but to say it's not an advantage is disingenuous

Tall people have an advantage in basketball. Should tall people not be allowed to compete against short people to play basketball?

certain sports I really don't think it matters much in

@murgatroid99 short people just don't get picked for basketball teams, they don't make the cuts. It's survival of the fittest

@GnomeSlice In this case, the slower people lost to the faster people.

So then, skip like 20 years and the women's track team is potentially made up entirely of trans women?

That just seems a little unfair to all the other women

Is what I think people are getting at

Then you just have biological men competing on both teams, at that point you might as well just not split the teams up any more and then non-trans women are simply out of luck

(for some events anyway, namely weightlifting)

user15026

@GnomeSlice that's highly unlikely, considering the proportion of transhumans that exist vs number of peopel who participate in high level sports

10:48 PM

Agreed... could happen though

user15026

So could a lot of things, it's a bad hypothetical

I don't think so

Those two young girls who got cut are probably pretty upset, how would you explain this to them

@GnomeSlice Most people are out of luck for participating at a reasonably competitive level in most sports anyway

Haha. fair.

If a tall person joins your high school, the least good person on the current basketball team might leave. Is that fair to that person? They didn't change, the makeup of the rest of the group did

From the point of view of the two girls who were cut, this situation is exactly the same as one in which two girls who are really good at track moved to their town

StrongBad

10:51 PM

I find it hard to believe someone would falsely claim a gender identity just to make a high school sports team.

user15026

Basically, that's effectively what happened, if we ignore their transness

@GnomeSlice to call trans women biological men is problematic at best friend

Just going to casually toss that out there

@Ash I'll be honest, I simply didn't read the article enough to see if they joined the team because they moved from elsewhere or came out as trans

user15026

Well, I'm not sure if it was that or the other either, but for all intents and purposes, it was - I am willing to bet a lot of cookies that they didn't come out jsut so they could be stars of the women's track team or whatever

But the point is that having the worst person on the team cut because someone better shows up always feels shitty for that worst person. The primary purpose of harping on the fact that the new person was trans is to stir up transphobic sentiment by associating it with that shitty feeling that people can empathize with.

10:54 PM

@Unionhawk I also don't agree, I mean it's true. I'm not trying to delegitimize it. I think trans acceptance is something really important in our society because as a trend I don't think it's going away, and there are tons of different people out there. I don't think that means we should pretend differences aren't differences though

Society obviously has a lot of work to do in this area, and sports imo are one area where that shows

@GnomeSlice it isn't true, biology is a lot more complicated than that

shrug, idk man. I'm not having that discussion right now

ArtOfCode

@GnomeSlice It may or may not be true - you don't know, and as an unrelated member of the public you have no need or right to know

@murgatroid99 who said anything about being transphobic, are you suggesting that I am

ArtOfCode

someone tells you they're a woman then as far as you're concerned they're a woman

10:56 PM

Absolutely, in a social setting sure

idk man, it really seems like an unfair physical advantage, you should be paired with people on the same playing field as you

@GnomeSlice No, I'm suggesting that the article you linked to was written with that intention

StrongBad

@GnomeSlice nope. Just absolutely in every setting other than a medical setting.

We have special olympics for that reason wrt physical disability so why should this be different

ArtOfCode

in... just about any situation except select medical issues, actually

@GnomeSlice but both gender and biological sex are actually terrible ways of ensuring an "even playing field". It's just a convenient division that barely approaches a reasonable approximation of "even"

10:57 PM

terrible? I mean we've had men's leagues and women's leagues in sports since like... the dawn of time

I mean we've been doing bad and or ineffective things since the dawn of time too so that still checks out

That's true, but it's a pretty obvious distinction

@GnomeSlice Most men are not on an even playing field with each other with regard to just about any sport