Transgender kids should consider learning to ride horses. At least in the English riding world of hunters, jumpers, eventing, and dressage everyone competes against everyone else. Nobody asks to see your birth certificate before you are allowed to compete. From the backyard horse shows to the Olympics, the horse and rider compete as a team against other teams. We even got rid of the weight compensation rule in eventing that forced small women riders to carry metal weight in their saddles to compensate for their lighter weight on their horses.
Riding is a challenging sport that requires practice, skill, balance, courage, and love of horses. That’s it.
And one more thing—voters like fighters more than they like candidates who pander. The minute Republicans accuse you of being too pro-trans, turn it around on them. Accuse them of strange genitals obsessions, suggest that they not be allowed alone in the room with children, and remind everyone that these same bags of shit were forcing out gay teachers from their jobs right up until that became electorally inconvenient.
Try do raise a point worth addressing—is it worth a tactical move to the center if it helps you win elections (or pass legislation) that gets you closer to where you want to be, rather than dying on a hill and losing all? Because many of these people point to the result of Trump winning and say this is far worse—even just from a POV of a trans person’s rights, considering Trump is destroying careers of trans servicemembers—than ceding ground on say trans kids in sports.
My response is that you have to really consider the costs of those tactical retreats. If a bigoted baker refuses to put a “gay marriage” message on a cake, the cost is finding another baker, or icing the message yourself, or even saying “fuck cake, we’re serving ice cream.” I can see not dying in that hill, when Republicans are trying to get gay teachers fired like it’s 1978 all over again. But not letting a kid participate in sports not only deprives that kid of the activity, it sends a message to that kid (and their peers) that their gender identity is really just a mental problem and that leads to far worse. Considering the disgusting public attitudes so many people (even purported liberals and feminists) regularly express about trans people, this seems a fairly high cost to “retreat” on.
And if the cost is too high—if the “retreat” betrays something fundamental of our coalition—then I’d say we’d better figure out how to make our stance more popular. If you don’t think you can make “fuck it, they’re kids, let them participate you scolds” the majority view, then you suck. Republicans managed to sell tax cuts to people who don’t qualify for them. You can sell anything.
As for “oh the trans girls have a natural advantage” then I have bad news for you about tall girls.
Yep—and there’s also the fact that Dems will be seen by voters as more “pro trans” in general, so it’s not like staking “middle ground” will reward them. Worse, it looks disingenuous and tactical (because it is). On the other hand, voters love a pit fighter—even when they don’t really agree on the issue. A strong, convincing defense on this issue is likely more tactically smart than a retreat.
I frankly respect Republicans more for the fact that they are able to remain firm on their opposition to gun safety even after the worst school shooting. They stick with the talking points and don’t budge. This always stuns Democrats
This column kind of avoids the main issue, which is if sex-based protections for women should remain on the books or not. Because if you say biological sex just equates to socially-constructed gender, then there's no longer any real basis for women's sports, women's clinics, or women's spaces in general.
School sports yes is partially about building teamwork, but it's also based on fair play. And fair play acknowledges the overall substantial physical advantages boys generally have over girls. Also, why do you never hear about trans men competing in male sports? Because they don't even try, for obvious reasons.
The piece also doesn't address the increasing data showing the evidence supporting medical transitioning of minors is weak at best and completely erroneous at worst. Liberal Western Europe was ahead of the U.S. in initating gender-affirming care and now they're ahead of us walking back mistakes that were made in the past 20 years.
That's a pretty weak strawman. Yes they are girls who are more athletic than other girls, and some girls who are stronger/more athletic than some boys. But BY AND LARGE, in the aggregate, top males will beat top females due to the increased lean muscle mass/size that biology confers to them.
Has the reason we've had sex-segregated sports since girls could play sports been solely because we're discriminating against girls from competing against boys? That notion is absurd.
It’s not a straw man—the analogy is sound. Some kids have unfair natural advantages over others, and height, size, coordination and speed (not to mention kids who have parents with resources to get them into expensive early training programs) have a far greater effect on whether a girl will out-compete her less fortunate peers than a trans girl. And if being born male (prior to hormone treatments, etc BTW) is such an advantage, I’d expect to see the trans girls dominate their sports. Instead we have that whiny dipshit Riley Gaines getting far more than her 15 minutes bitching about sharing 5th place with a trans girl. Left unsaid are the four girls who beat both of them in that race.
Now, is the fact that some have unfair advantages over others a thing that ruins the point of sports for kids? Not at all—my kid (to use a real world example) isn’t likely to dominate any sport, but I want her participating anyway because the experience is a good one that carries over into other life skills. That’s also the main reason we have girls’ sports and boys’ sports—it shouldn’t just be about the elite among them, otherwise that’d be a waste of resources.
Again, this presumes that the few trans girls who play in sports are automatically stronger and larger than other girls. Or that as Brando wrote, any actual physical advantage is inherently unfair simply bc they are trans.
There are otherwise no height or weight cut offs for non-trans girls.
It's especially absurd when trans girls are being told they can't compete against cis girls in things with no physical component at all, like chess! What's next, gender-segregated Fortnite leagues?
Where is this happening? My son played scholastic chess and there was no segregation by gender. Some of the best players were girls. At the professional level, there is a Women's Chess Championship for women only, but women can compete for the overall championship as well.
The Democrats, after losing a national election by 1 fucking percentage point, took the lesson that they weren't centrist enough. Fuck me.
Dividing the left over Trans is playing right into their evil machinations. It's so transparent and stupid that if I read it in a novel, I'd think it was a too much.
We lost to a charismatic narcissist after throwing our Democratic President under the bus (and running over him a few times), hastily handing the reins to his relatively obscure but well loved second-in-command, and then hamstringing her slapdash campaign by focus-grouping it to death.
We'll lose again in 2026 and 2028 if the central party doesn't wake up and realize that we lost because, 1) The MSM hates Democrats, 2) America hates POC, 3) America really hates women, and 4) milquetoast platitudes are political suicide.
"Of course, these positions aren’t static, and Cowan doesn’t acknowledge how propagandists like Christopher Rufo can influence voter opinion on an issue, especially one that most people only comprehend in the abstract. "
FTFY.
Politicians only pick up the narratives spread by the propagandists, especially in cases involving the manufactured "hated other" who is simultaneously weak and degenerate and an existential threat to the Society/State.
The value (maybe the major value) and focus of sports in elementary/middle/high school should be learning to cooperate, to work on a team, and to have fun doing physical activity. If kids are excluded because they're trans, or gay, or too big/tall/heavy, or too short/small, or the "wrong" sex then sports ends up being an activity for a subset of kids. And if it's done in sports it'll be done in other extracurricular activities. That's the wrong lesson to be teaching.
Influencing the populace as a politician requires sustained media coverage, *with the understanding that the position won't be distorted in any way.* This is one of the reasons why I've written about the rightwing media human centipede. One thing I want to point out of this is that a lot of Republican officeholders are themselves social media influencers that just happen to have a Congressional side job/sinecure.
I don't know if the Third Way strategists know or care about this. But this is an important component of furthering the demonization of trans people. The wealthy people who bankroll the rightwing media human centipede find the latent bigotry of many Americans a useful thing to stoke, and because of that alignment the American people are happy to give Republicans power to enact regressive policy and/or destroy things.
Do note of course this media structure is absent from the Democratic Party, because the big money required to maintain not only mass media but also podcast, social media farms, etc. is disincentivized from supporting Democrats (because of not only redistributive policies Dems advocate for, but also the minorities they champion).
This means that, unfortunately, a lot of the legwork in advancing friendly positions has to come from all of us who actively participate in social media. It means that we have to fight hard against algorithms that bias towards rightwing regressive content and keep pushing back.
And crucially we have to defeat Dems in primaries who want to throw minorities under the bus. Because that ALWAYS turns out badly. This is how this works every time, the net widens for minorities to diminish and then destroy.
So for example, Gavin Newsom must be defeated. But we have to also understand that if the electorate has not upgraded to support decency for all, we will face several defeats.
Bravo! Throwing innocent, vulnerable people under the bus is immoral, and never a good political strategy. I am glad that you mentioned that right-wingers aren't arguing in good faith, and that Harris clearly listened to consultants and focus groups, because believing right-wingers and listening to consultants and focus groups is the best way to sink a Democratic campaign. Speaking of focus groups, how does one sign up? I'd participate in one, but have never been asked, nor seen where you can sign up for one, nor do I know of anyone who has been a participant in a focus group. Which leads me to believe that "...𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑦 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑓𝑜𝑐𝑢𝑠 𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑝𝑠." are friends and relatives of the consultants, and who agree with whatever the consultants think on any given issue. In short, they are phonies. I wish that Dems would ditch them, and consult with real voters all over the country, even in red areas like mine.
Transgender kids should consider learning to ride horses. At least in the English riding world of hunters, jumpers, eventing, and dressage everyone competes against everyone else. Nobody asks to see your birth certificate before you are allowed to compete. From the backyard horse shows to the Olympics, the horse and rider compete as a team against other teams. We even got rid of the weight compensation rule in eventing that forced small women riders to carry metal weight in their saddles to compensate for their lighter weight on their horses.
Riding is a challenging sport that requires practice, skill, balance, courage, and love of horses. That’s it.
Since SER featured that great piece about Ilona Maher, I thought you all might enjoy this related article, ICYMI. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/26/well/move/jan-todd-strength-training.html?unlocked_article_code=1.LU8.DeAl.yuxk6FCS2B7a&smid=url-share
And one more thing—voters like fighters more than they like candidates who pander. The minute Republicans accuse you of being too pro-trans, turn it around on them. Accuse them of strange genitals obsessions, suggest that they not be allowed alone in the room with children, and remind everyone that these same bags of shit were forcing out gay teachers from their jobs right up until that became electorally inconvenient.
Try do raise a point worth addressing—is it worth a tactical move to the center if it helps you win elections (or pass legislation) that gets you closer to where you want to be, rather than dying on a hill and losing all? Because many of these people point to the result of Trump winning and say this is far worse—even just from a POV of a trans person’s rights, considering Trump is destroying careers of trans servicemembers—than ceding ground on say trans kids in sports.
My response is that you have to really consider the costs of those tactical retreats. If a bigoted baker refuses to put a “gay marriage” message on a cake, the cost is finding another baker, or icing the message yourself, or even saying “fuck cake, we’re serving ice cream.” I can see not dying in that hill, when Republicans are trying to get gay teachers fired like it’s 1978 all over again. But not letting a kid participate in sports not only deprives that kid of the activity, it sends a message to that kid (and their peers) that their gender identity is really just a mental problem and that leads to far worse. Considering the disgusting public attitudes so many people (even purported liberals and feminists) regularly express about trans people, this seems a fairly high cost to “retreat” on.
And if the cost is too high—if the “retreat” betrays something fundamental of our coalition—then I’d say we’d better figure out how to make our stance more popular. If you don’t think you can make “fuck it, they’re kids, let them participate you scolds” the majority view, then you suck. Republicans managed to sell tax cuts to people who don’t qualify for them. You can sell anything.
As for “oh the trans girls have a natural advantage” then I have bad news for you about tall girls.
Exactly! As I note, the GOP is actively demonizing trans people beyond the sports issue.
Yep—and there’s also the fact that Dems will be seen by voters as more “pro trans” in general, so it’s not like staking “middle ground” will reward them. Worse, it looks disingenuous and tactical (because it is). On the other hand, voters love a pit fighter—even when they don’t really agree on the issue. A strong, convincing defense on this issue is likely more tactically smart than a retreat.
I frankly respect Republicans more for the fact that they are able to remain firm on their opposition to gun safety even after the worst school shooting. They stick with the talking points and don’t budge. This always stuns Democrats
As a weak-willed Democrat would say when seeing Republicans not budge—“it’s like they BELIEVE the stuff they say!”
Let’s ruin women’s sport because… fairness. In other news the earth is flat and self identifies as a moon
This column kind of avoids the main issue, which is if sex-based protections for women should remain on the books or not. Because if you say biological sex just equates to socially-constructed gender, then there's no longer any real basis for women's sports, women's clinics, or women's spaces in general.
School sports yes is partially about building teamwork, but it's also based on fair play. And fair play acknowledges the overall substantial physical advantages boys generally have over girls. Also, why do you never hear about trans men competing in male sports? Because they don't even try, for obvious reasons.
The piece also doesn't address the increasing data showing the evidence supporting medical transitioning of minors is weak at best and completely erroneous at worst. Liberal Western Europe was ahead of the U.S. in initating gender-affirming care and now they're ahead of us walking back mistakes that were made in the past 20 years.
Why should my daughter have to play sports against girls who are taller or otherwise more athletically gifted?
That's a pretty weak strawman. Yes they are girls who are more athletic than other girls, and some girls who are stronger/more athletic than some boys. But BY AND LARGE, in the aggregate, top males will beat top females due to the increased lean muscle mass/size that biology confers to them.
Has the reason we've had sex-segregated sports since girls could play sports been solely because we're discriminating against girls from competing against boys? That notion is absurd.
It’s not a straw man—the analogy is sound. Some kids have unfair natural advantages over others, and height, size, coordination and speed (not to mention kids who have parents with resources to get them into expensive early training programs) have a far greater effect on whether a girl will out-compete her less fortunate peers than a trans girl. And if being born male (prior to hormone treatments, etc BTW) is such an advantage, I’d expect to see the trans girls dominate their sports. Instead we have that whiny dipshit Riley Gaines getting far more than her 15 minutes bitching about sharing 5th place with a trans girl. Left unsaid are the four girls who beat both of them in that race.
Now, is the fact that some have unfair advantages over others a thing that ruins the point of sports for kids? Not at all—my kid (to use a real world example) isn’t likely to dominate any sport, but I want her participating anyway because the experience is a good one that carries over into other life skills. That’s also the main reason we have girls’ sports and boys’ sports—it shouldn’t just be about the elite among them, otherwise that’d be a waste of resources.
Again, this presumes that the few trans girls who play in sports are automatically stronger and larger than other girls. Or that as Brando wrote, any actual physical advantage is inherently unfair simply bc they are trans.
There are otherwise no height or weight cut offs for non-trans girls.
It's especially absurd when trans girls are being told they can't compete against cis girls in things with no physical component at all, like chess! What's next, gender-segregated Fortnite leagues?
Where is this happening? My son played scholastic chess and there was no segregation by gender. Some of the best players were girls. At the professional level, there is a Women's Chess Championship for women only, but women can compete for the overall championship as well.
But everyone knows girls can’t play chess! It causes miscarriages and interferes with the ironing!
/do I need the “/s” tag?
The Democrats, after losing a national election by 1 fucking percentage point, took the lesson that they weren't centrist enough. Fuck me.
Dividing the left over Trans is playing right into their evil machinations. It's so transparent and stupid that if I read it in a novel, I'd think it was a too much.
We lost to a charismatic narcissist after throwing our Democratic President under the bus (and running over him a few times), hastily handing the reins to his relatively obscure but well loved second-in-command, and then hamstringing her slapdash campaign by focus-grouping it to death.
We'll lose again in 2026 and 2028 if the central party doesn't wake up and realize that we lost because, 1) The MSM hates Democrats, 2) America hates POC, 3) America really hates women, and 4) milquetoast platitudes are political suicide.
Sorry, I forgot why I came here: Fuck Newsom.
He’s toast for 2028, the traitor.
Meanwhile, at least Tim Walz is getting it right. If we aren't the party of human rights, what good are we?
"Of course, these positions aren’t static, and Cowan doesn’t acknowledge how propagandists like Christopher Rufo can influence voter opinion on an issue, especially one that most people only comprehend in the abstract. "
FTFY.
Politicians only pick up the narratives spread by the propagandists, especially in cases involving the manufactured "hated other" who is simultaneously weak and degenerate and an existential threat to the Society/State.
Josef Goebbels 101.
The value (maybe the major value) and focus of sports in elementary/middle/high school should be learning to cooperate, to work on a team, and to have fun doing physical activity. If kids are excluded because they're trans, or gay, or too big/tall/heavy, or too short/small, or the "wrong" sex then sports ends up being an activity for a subset of kids. And if it's done in sports it'll be done in other extracurricular activities. That's the wrong lesson to be teaching.
Inclusion is wrongthink nowadays.
My trans family votes in every election. Can every family say the same?
So here's a few observations:
Influencing the populace as a politician requires sustained media coverage, *with the understanding that the position won't be distorted in any way.* This is one of the reasons why I've written about the rightwing media human centipede. One thing I want to point out of this is that a lot of Republican officeholders are themselves social media influencers that just happen to have a Congressional side job/sinecure.
I don't know if the Third Way strategists know or care about this. But this is an important component of furthering the demonization of trans people. The wealthy people who bankroll the rightwing media human centipede find the latent bigotry of many Americans a useful thing to stoke, and because of that alignment the American people are happy to give Republicans power to enact regressive policy and/or destroy things.
Do note of course this media structure is absent from the Democratic Party, because the big money required to maintain not only mass media but also podcast, social media farms, etc. is disincentivized from supporting Democrats (because of not only redistributive policies Dems advocate for, but also the minorities they champion).
This means that, unfortunately, a lot of the legwork in advancing friendly positions has to come from all of us who actively participate in social media. It means that we have to fight hard against algorithms that bias towards rightwing regressive content and keep pushing back.
And crucially we have to defeat Dems in primaries who want to throw minorities under the bus. Because that ALWAYS turns out badly. This is how this works every time, the net widens for minorities to diminish and then destroy.
So for example, Gavin Newsom must be defeated. But we have to also understand that if the electorate has not upgraded to support decency for all, we will face several defeats.
“Centrist” Democrats can go piss up a rope.
And/Or murder.
Bravo! Throwing innocent, vulnerable people under the bus is immoral, and never a good political strategy. I am glad that you mentioned that right-wingers aren't arguing in good faith, and that Harris clearly listened to consultants and focus groups, because believing right-wingers and listening to consultants and focus groups is the best way to sink a Democratic campaign. Speaking of focus groups, how does one sign up? I'd participate in one, but have never been asked, nor seen where you can sign up for one, nor do I know of anyone who has been a participant in a focus group. Which leads me to believe that "...𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑦 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑓𝑜𝑐𝑢𝑠 𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑝𝑠." are friends and relatives of the consultants, and who agree with whatever the consultants think on any given issue. In short, they are phonies. I wish that Dems would ditch them, and consult with real voters all over the country, even in red areas like mine.