I can also see how folks who are otherwise well-meaning get there via wanting to underline what a non-issue this should be, but as you said, there’s better/shorter ways even to do that (like, “trans women are women” is four words and so is “this is settled science”)
I think part of the reason this line of reasoning is so sticky is because it's like catnip to anybody that already loves means testing in general "Sure I want trans kids to be able to feel include, but what about . . ." "Sure I want kids to be able to eat at school, but what about . . ."
There is also the handy built-in allyship of the Let’s Professionalize Tee-Ball crowd
Although I am guessing that those circles overlap pretty perfectly
If college were more affordable, there would be less * economic anxiety * around varsity sports and athletic scholarships
my response about the college affordability argument: bsky.app/profile/miam...
Yes but also remember if you made your child play lax for 10 years to improve scholarship odds, you’re artificially limiting the schools you want scholarships from. All those other schools “don’t count” when you’re only shopping for the label.
So yes I’m contradicting myself here but the conversation still boils down to “the ‘good’ schools are too restrictive and expensive” so I have to blame (insert any group that isn’t legacies here)
yes, but also I've got two AAU universities with bigass waitlists on that list. I don't need to change their mind, I just need other people to realize it's just a hustle for social positioning reproduction
Agreed, but people really need to internalize how much they're investing in "Mega Millions, but make it kids' sports"
invest in Latin American teenagers today at fan invest dot not a scam dot com
"we're sorry Braden, you just weren't showing the upside for a Duke soccer scholarship, so unfortunately you're being cut from Team McArdle so we can bring in Leandro for our big push for promotion"
100% I'm just pointing out that youth sports got hyper professionalised for this exact reason. We havent internalised it and instead are lashing out at these kids that just want to be themselves
Oh I know, that's a big part of why this tactic is working. I'm just saying we need to call those parents out for what they're doing: gambling on million to one odds and making everybody else pay for their losses
That’s a really good way of putting it
there's also an element of "but how do I reproduce *my* elite social indicators," some of the shit I have heard notionally liberal parents saying about college admissions... 😬
I forget who I was talking to a couple weeks ago, but we were trying to fit this into the framework of “every accusation is a confession with this crowd,” and then realized these absolutely are people who would put their kids through Gattaca surgery if it got them into the right travel baseball club
the sad thing is, the actual lesson these kids could learn from playing sports is that sometimes you work really hard and you still don't get what you want, life is like that
As always Picard has us covered here, youtu.be/t4A-Ml8YHyM?...
If every area of parenting advice was some variation of "you have to get into this preschool or else it's over and by the way its 25k a term" for 10-15 years, I can see where I would crack too.
I remember people joking about this being the case in NYC ~30 years ago (those crazy new yorkers!) and now it has trickled down to everywhere
tracking you into or out of college prep when you're barely old enough to read is a hell of a drug
no thank you.
Holly, if my parents loved me more they would have given me external fixators on my femurs for my 11th birthday, so I could dunk the basketball.
(point being, it's not usually a surprise when transphobia is downstream of other "less acceptable" bigotries even in bien pensant circles)
Gonna get right back around to how creepy the LLWS broadcasts are
They should not be showing anything but the finals
Go a couple steps further: there's no good reason for an international championship for 12 year olds
That part!!
That part!!
except for Guts
How did we get a Legends of the Hidden Temple reboot but not Guts?
too hard to find new pieces of the radical rock
The island they strip-mined for it underwent environmental collapse. Sad, really.
Because we no longer have it.
DAMN
Obviously except for Guts, are we even a society if we don't know who amongst our nation's tweens can reach the peak of Aggro Crag?
the mountain might punish us if we did not honor it according to the old ways
Girl...it was on the tv when I was at a restaurant yesterday and my eyes immediately zeroed in on the weight being displayed based on recent skeets. Just wild shit imho
It's so fucking weird!
See also: “it’s not your business”
as someone trying to help advocate for trans folks how do you combat the "competitive advantage" narrative? I admit I don't know enough to confidently counter that point in some way.
Either by pointing them to the body of available research on the topic or by looking them dead in the eye and saying “wait until you hear about rich and/or tall kids”
Could just show them Derrick Henry’s high school stats
Save Men’s Sports (From Ndamukong Suh)
Pros vs Joes: Transphobe Edition
Or this tape: youtu.be/mWrbXN4cIo0?...
Yeah if we’re bringing it home, I find it’s always helpful to take family members by the hand and tell them we’re building a world where it’s safe to bully athletes not because of their physical attributes, but because they played basketball at Baylor
gwen: tall women have an advantage in basketball, others have an advantage in swimming because of a wide wingspan or a high lung capacity. but those women aren't thrown out of the sport for the sake of "fairness".
gwen: trans women aren't being banned from women's sport for any "advantage" we're being banned for being trans. the core, reasoning behind banning certain kinds women from the women's category is that sporting authorities believe we aren't "womanly" enough to qualify. the rest is just set dressing.
You don't combat it. Arguing about the science of hormone replacement's effects on any previous advantage is pointless, and it's simpler than that anyway: Youth sports - not about competition. Pro/competitive sports - *everybody* has innate advantages/disadvantages, *that's the point*
amateur athletics are literally for the love of the game should be about camaraderie, fun, sportsmanship, self-improvement not about whether you lost a soccer game because one of eleven people had slightly more muscle mass
I hadn't thought about it that way. Thanks for breaking it down for a dummy like me.
It's really hard to resist the framing that they put forth, and that's by design. The only way to win is to not play the[ir] game 💕
Exactly. I understand the logical pathway from folks who want to help, but it's so easy to just take it to the foundational level of "let people be themselves and enjoy things"
more and more, the Get Real Problems Party gains speed and power
Even as well meaning as I am I know I've made this mistake. Thanks for the reminder!
🫶
It also seems to be the kind of argument people think that small-government conservatives would find persuasive: “Look at all the government resources you’re devoting to this non-issue.” But there are like 4 of those kind of conservatives left, so yeah: better to go right to the merits.