Obviously, phrases sometimes take on meanings that transcend their ordinary usage. "All Lives Matter" might be true in the abstract, but came to be used as an intentional juxtaposition with BLM & it's reasonable to expect at least politicians to be aware of that. Perhaps that's at work here as well.
In general, I think news and policy work should focus on real life problems instead of hypotheticals, and it is irresponsible *at best* when we focus on hypotheticals. That many people think this hypothetical is a real, pressing problem is a failure of media to accurately inform the public.
I don’t have to pretend a concern is reasonable just because a lot of people believe it. Almost a third of Americans believe Barack Obama wasn’t really born in the United States despite abundant evidence to the contrary.
Mainstream media accepting that President Obama’s place of birth is a legitimate concern and attempting to address the conspiracy theory with evidence has done basically nothing dissuade those people.
That's a tough/thought-provoking analogy. My initial reaction is that if there were an otherwise-persuadable Birther voter, I think it would be OK to say "I know you might have heard that from a lot of people, but here's the evidence showing he was born in HI." But that's not a claim re efficacy.
I do not believe there are a lot of persuadable people. There are a lot of people who care more about other things and will focus on those other things when presented with them. Entertaining this topic as legitimate, even to try debunking it, just signal boosts it.
Being like “oh, the birthers have some good points because there sure are a lot of them!” is just ridiculous.
The issue is not that trans organizations and journalists have not been explaining things well enough to people who are concerned about trans kids playing sports. It is that people who are concerned about trans kids playing sports have been brain poisoned to worry about an imaginary problem.
It is not possible to overcome the misinformation firehose with facts, nor is it possible to overcome the misinformation firehose by treating that misinformation like it is real and serious.