I think progressives never thought about this because we banked on immigration and demographic change allowing us to win culturally and electorally but the issue is immigrants tend to be overwhelmingly male, that is how Trump won actually he won over a lot of Hispanic,Black,Asian and indigenous men who feel humiliated by a new culture, economy and world.
So what can we do rhetorically and policy wise to win more young men over ?
The problem here is that this is just the front lines of the attack on transgender people. This is a way of not treating them as the gender they express, and it won’t end there. It’s the goal post, and the goal posts will keep moving. The bathroom, the athletics, the healthcare - they’re all the same thing. A coordinated assault. Nobody cared about transgender athletes until it was used as a wedge issue and as yet another way to box transgender people out of society.
I agree that we need to stop the infighting, but I disagree that it involves giving ground in the assault on oppressed minorities. If it’s a genuine problem, we can circle back and discuss our athletics in a civil society where these people aren’t actively under attack. But as it stands, any law written about this right now isn’t being written in the pursuit of fairness, it’s being written as a weapon of oppression.
We have more important things to be doing, and that means fighting this assault with exactly what you describe - better messaging.
Do exactly what the conservative front does. Use these wedge issues as a way to fight the bigger fight. Keep the messaging on point.
I get what you’re saying, but every rights movement has worked the opposite way. It’s not about giving up ground, it’s about picking one battle at a time. Gay people fought to be not killed, then fought to be accepted, then fought to be able to marry. It wasn’t a single “equality” battle, it was a series of battles in a longer war. They didn’t slide back immediately when they couldn’t get married, they fought the next fight.
Some people really suck, but for a lot I think it’s more misunderstanding or reluctance to let things change. There’s many reasons. Labeling everyone who doesn’t get on board with every facet of what you want means you’re reducing your allies. And those people who are comfortable with one thing but uncomfortable with another may become more comfortable when they see that the first thing doesn’t lead to the collapse of society.
I’ll be honest, I don’t get what you’re saying about rights movements. Every single rights movement has been nothing but an uphill battle for acceptance, and no rights movement has ever benefitted from saying “okay, you can hold onto this right for now, as a treat.”
I’m not labelling anyone anything. I’m saying that there’s more important things to deal with right now. You don’t need to get on board with transgender athletes - you just need to stay focused on the real problems. If you support them, great. Defend them.
If you don’t support them, fine, but you need to attack the very idea that the national conversation has anything to do with transgender athletes. It doesn’t.
The fascists in charge don’t give a shit about the issue, it’s just a weapon in their arsenal, and a means of distracting you from the real problems. Every moment someone says “actually that’s a good point, let’s talk about sports” is another moment wasted. None of it is about sports. It’s about a rising wave of fascism that needs to be stopped at all costs.
I think I misunderstood what you were originally saying and we’re more or less on the same side. My point was that it’s not about saying “okay we’ll stop caring about this” but about saying “this isn’t the thing we need to be focusing attention on right now.” I worded it very poorly.
That’s probably the right strategy. I think there is room for academic discussion of how trans sports should be handled, but we spend too much time talking about that and aren’t saying enough of importance for me to believe that the discussion is currently effective.
Absolutely. The most important thing is that it’s not urgent. People are dying. Education is failing. Healthcare, research, science, they’re all under attack.
The economy is plummeting into uncertainty, the cost of living continues to rise, and people are underpaid, overworked, and struggling to make ends meet while the corporate-backed media writes headlines like “economy is doing well, <cherry-picked numbers> are slightly up this quarter!”
They’re threatening war, they’re shredding the constitution, they’re tearing away human rights.
What is the outcome of a soccer game, against all that? What is the value of a trophy, against the value of human lives? Why are we worried about the “fairness” of a game, when a technological golden age meets a society in decline?
Every inch of ground we give is a victory for them, and a loss for us. Every time we let them control the conversation, every time we pander to their talking points, every time we pretend that there is a shred of reason behind the wave of fascism, is a loss for us.