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Democrats playing footsy with fascist Charlie Kirk over hating trans people. This is the party that’s supposed to be the great defenders of LGBT people?

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a pioneer for LGBTQ+ rights who decades ago upset leaders in his own party when he defied state law and issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples, suggested Democrats were in the wrong in allowing transgender athletes to participate in female college and youth sports.

“I think it’s an issue of fairness, I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness — it’s deeply unfair,” Newsom said in his debut podcast episode of “This is Gavin Newsom.” “I am not wrestling with the fairness issue. I totally agree with you.”

Newsom’s comments on the issue roiling political debates nationwide came in a conversation with influential MAGA-world figure Charlie Kirk, the campus culture warrior who leads the organization Turning Point USA and is a close ally of President Donald Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr.

Newsom also agreed that the most politically destructive attack ads from Trump’s campaign featured Kamala Harris’ support for providing taxpayer-funded gender transition-related medical care for detained immigrants and federal prisoners.

“She didn’t even react to it, which was even more devastating,” Newsom said, suggesting upward of 90 percent of Americans disagreed with Harris’ position. “Then you had the video [of Harris] as a validator. Brutal,” Newsom added. “It was a great ad.”

Kirk challenged Newsom, a likely 2028 presidential hopeful, to speak out against AB Hernandez, a transgender high school track star from California whose triple jump event in the women’s competition is drawing fierce backlash from the right. Newsom said he has four children of his own — including two daughters — and noted that both he and his wife participated in college-level sports, she in soccer and he in baseball.

“I revere sports, so the issue of fairness is completely legit,” Newsom said. “And I saw that — the last couple years, boy did I [see] how you guys were able to weaponize that issue at another level.”

Kirk challenged Newsom over his use of the word “weaponize,” and Newsom replaced it with “highlight.”

  • FMT99@lemmy.world
    1513·
    3 days ago

    On the one hand, we absolutely shouldn’t abandon minorities just because it’s politically advantageous. On the other hand, trans sports is one of those issues where there’s legitimate debate to be had. And it’s an issue greedily grabbed on to by conservatives as a cudgel to silence ALL requests for trans rights. Is this one issue, even if it is unfair, the hill we want to die on?

    To be clear, on these more complicated issues it’s important not to give up the long term fight. But by fighting with an “all or nothing” mentality, it seems we are ending up with nothing.

    • Carrolade@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      3 days ago

      I think it’s important to remember that it’s not a decision for governments to make, but for sports governing bodies. The government has no need to or benefit from legislating how sports competitions are arranged.

      • PowerCrazy@lemmy.mlEnglish
        82·
        3 days ago

        I think it’s important to remember that it’s not a decision for governments to make

        Not really true since things like Title IX exist.

        • Carrolade@lemmy.worldEnglish
          71·
          3 days ago

          Fair point. I suppose I would draw a distinction between education and athletics, though I know full well that is difficult to disentangle.

    • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      3 days ago

      But by fighting with an “all or nothing” mentality, it seems we are ending up with nothing.

      Since when have Democrats fought with an “all or nothing” mentality? They’ve been doing this “negotiate down before coming to the table” shit since at least Obama.

    • GlacialTurtle@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      197·
      3 days ago

      There is no legitimate debate. It’s scaremongering.

      But sure, “complicated issues” requires paling around with a fascist like Charlie Kirk and talking about how he’s correct, backing down immediately when challenged on using “weaponize” to accurately describe conservative attacks on trans people and being asked to target and harass specific trans athletes based on nothing.

      Just like “complicated issues” requires reaffirming conservative framing of immigration and adopting language about how immigrants are stealing welfare money and smuggling gangs requires further militarisation of borders and out of country processing of immigrants.

      You’re the useful idiot that the thin end of the wedge is for.

      • FMT99@lemmy.world
        56·
        2 days ago

        Well that last line certainly makes you feel like you’re being engaged in a good faith discussion.

      • PowerCrazy@lemmy.mlEnglish
        612·
        3 days ago

        There is no legitimate debate. It’s scaremongering.

        We use sex as a proxy for athletic potential in sports in order to keep things fair for women and men. Otherwise women’s sports wouldn’t exist at all because it’s a biological fact that male athletes are absolutely stronger/faster/better at basically any sport. No whatever corner case you throw out has no bearing on the above fact.

        The mainstream existence of trans-athletes shows that we need a different way to create competitive leagues (just sex isn’t sufficient) so that trans-athletes can be included, but no one has an agreed upon solution for that yet.

        • GlacialTurtle@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
          194·
          3 days ago

          And the conservatives scaremongering about this are definitely good faith actors who aren’t just scaremongering and harassing a tiny minority of trans athletes who do not in fact represent some massive social problem that requires national level obsession with targeting and identifying trans people to harass, with Gavin Newsom hanging around with a fascist saying “yassss besty” as he literally directly refers to a specific trans athlete to target and harass them.

          Another example of misplaced blame would be concerns that trans women have too much testosterone or that trans men are gaining an unfairly advantage by taking testosterone (8, 11, 56, 127). Herein lies the myth that cis men, not on gender affirming hormone therapy, will claim to be a trans women to win at female sporting events. However, trans individuals use gender affirming hormone therapy to better match their gender identity, not to gain unfair sporting advantages (132). While it is true that certain morphological changes that occur during puberty may be irreversible, trans individuals on gender affirming hormone therapy clearly do not retain the same physiologic parameters as their pre-transition counterparts (12, 15, 16, 54–56, 129). It is unclear to what extent, or for how long, any hormone mediated advantages may persist once a trans individual begins regular gender affirming hormone therapy (12, 15, 53, 56, 129). It has been shown that parameters affecting aerobic performance transition more quickly than those affecting strength performance (16, 127, 129). However, excluding trans individuals does not prevent cases of athletes having hormonal advantages. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) found 93 of the 4,422 athletes tested (2.1%) to have “adverse analytical finding” for steroid use (105). WADA does not report how many of those athletes were cis or trans, however, as transgender individuals are underrepresented in athletics, it is likely that these are cis athletes (60). Besides use of exogenous hormones, cisgender individuals naturally vary in their hormonal profiles (40, 59, 66, 133). Thus, restricting trans individuals is unlikely to prevent issues of ergogenic hormonal advantages in sports.

          Finally, it is well known that within sports and athletics, competitive advantage is in large part influenced by genetic predisposition (121, 134, 135). It is accepted that some individuals are born with natural advantages, however, the suggestion that trans individuals may enjoy some advantage in certain cases is regarded as unacceptable. Yet there does not seem to be a domination of sports by trans athletes if their advantage is so great. When examining issues that allegedly arise by trans athletes’ participation in sports and athletics, the solutions are more driven by a political/cultural divide rather than an honest attempt to actually mitigate inequities or risk of injuries that are occurring (1, 136).

          […]

          Individuals should not have to make a choice between being their authentic selves or being athletes (138). While trans athletes competing in various sports and athletic events raises interesting considerations of how certain morphologic and physiologic factors affect performance, these questions are not exclusive to trans individuals. There are wide variations within cisgender populations, even when excluding individuals with differences in sexual development (121, 139). It is expected that about 2.3% of a normally distributed population is likely to fall above two standard deviations from a population mean. These exceptional individuals may be those who are gifted and excel at some sport or athletic performance (121, 135, 140). In contrast only 0.5%–0.6% of the population identify as trans (60). There is no concern for restricting individuals who are exceptionally large or small, those who are genetically gifted, or those with differing hormone concentrations or muscle mass, so long as their gender and biologic sex align (120, 121). The disproportionate focus on the relatively small portion of the population who are trans seems based on the belief that cis men, who cannot succeed in sports among other cis men, would choose to misidentify as trans women to gain an advantage in sports against cis women. However, there are no legitimate cases of this occurring. An individual’s sex does not determine their success or failure at any athletic event despite the high level of competition. This can be demonstrated when looking at not average outcomes, but the level of overlap among outcomes. The exclusion of trans individuals also insults the skill and athleticism of both cis and trans athletes. While sex differences do develop following puberty, many of the sex differences are reduced, if not erased, over time by gender affirming hormone therapy. Finally, if it is found that trans individuals have advantages in certain athletic events or sports; in those cases, there will still be a question of whether this should be considered unfair, or accepted as another instance of naturally occurring variability seen in athletes already participating in these events.

          https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10641525/

          • PowerCrazy@lemmy.mlEnglish
            62·
            3 days ago

            And the conservatives scaremongering about this are definitely good faith actors who aren’t just scaremongering and harassing a tiny minority of trans athletes who do not in fact represent some massive social problem that requires national level obsession with targeting and identifying trans people to harass, with Gavin Newsom hanging around with a fascist saying “yassss besty” as he literally directly refers to a specific trans athlete to target and harass them.

            Agreed. But remember Newsome and California in general have never been particularly “left” leaning even in the American sense. Newsome himself has always been extremely “pro-business,” and other then some PR stunts he did for the (rich) gay community like 20+ years ago, he’s been pretty indistinguishable from Arnold Schwarzenegger. Even a very visible, and popular voter initiative like High-Speed rail has gotten nothing by lip-service which is why it will never be anymore then a pipedream as long as people like him are in charge of the California Democratic party.

    • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
      91·
      3 days ago

      It’s a foot in the door. Once we get banned from sports for not being “real women” it leads to more bans, like from bathrooms.

      The problem with sports is they’re inherently unfair. Singling out this one issue and ignoring all the other unfair aspects of sport only reinforces the basis for treating us differently.

      Sports should be reformed. This isn’t it.

      • FMT99@lemmy.world
        11·
        2 days ago

        Agreed. The idea that sports can be ‘fair’ is ridiculous to begin with. On that point I’m deliberately not arguing in any direction because it’s a complicated subject for which I (and by far most people I hear talking about it) am not factually equipped.

        But right now, pushing on this issue when the base line issues (bathrooms?) aren’t even addressed yet is causing more problems than good. Why do we think this is the right’s favorite talking point?

        • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
          6·
          2 days ago

          Why do we think this is the right’s favorite talking point?

          It’s like I said, it’s their foot in the door.

          If trans women can’t be allowed in women’s sports (we’re too big, or too strong, or to aggressive, or whatever other lie), the same logic leads directly to banning us from bathrooms and locker rooms and other women’s spaces. These issues are intertwined, they can use sport as a wedge to split the coalition.

          Critiquing the concept of fair sports undercuts the ability for the right to use this issue in the first place. By giving ground here, it only cedes further ground and opens us to attack.

          The right attacks this wedge issue because liberals don’t have a critique of sports, because they’re fucking cowards that wouldn’t dare criticize the US civic religion.