I try to remember that the set of people who believe exactly as I do, and want to move forward exactly as I do… is exactly ONE. I think that’s true for all of us.
A few weeks ago, commenter Llelldorin had a couple of smart and perceptive things to say in the comments. I broke their paragraph into single sentences because each piece is key, and each one builds on the one before it.
I’m more than happy to welcome MO farmers into the coalition.
I’m not willing to admit them at the expense of other coalition members.
If they’re at “we were wrong, we have to stop Trump,” welcome aboard.
If it’s “lose the weird transfolk first,” no, come back when you’re actually willing to join the party.
Basically we need them to at least get past the “bargaining” stage of grief first.
That describes my thinking better than I could have put it, and I’m willing to bet that virtually ever person on Balloon Juice shares that thinking. We could build on the beliefs we share, even if there is the inevitable myriad of ways to move forward. We don’t have to pick the perfect or the only way to move forward.
Forward is the goal.
Here’s a second comment from Llelldorin that struck me as profound.
Llelldorin gives us an analogy.
A better analogy might be early COVID’s arrival in California. Everyone’s first reaction was to run out and stockpile water, Why? Because we’ve been preparing for a major earthquake in California for decades, and stockpiling water is the correct thing to do for earthquakes. We began running the emergency response we knew, even though it wasn’t appropriate.
I think that’s what we’re seeing here — Trump winning was clearly a disaster, but at least at first we didn’t understand the nature of the disaster, so we all fixated on our go-to approach to political problems. If we were upset that Dems weren’t pro-Labor enough — that must have been the issue. If we were upset that the Dems had dumped Biden, that must have been the issue. Democratic Senators went into insider-politicking overdrive, because that’s how they’ve always handled losing elections in the past.
Basically we’re all reacting to genuine issues, but we have no way of knowing if they’re the correct ones, while in the mean time Trump and Musk start a quick-march to 1939 and all points Nazier.
I think we are slowly getting organized here — the fact that Trump’s popularity is in free-fall is giving some of us time to breathe and think. (OK, “some of us” is “me and maybe other people.”)
There’s a similar thing that happens with our coping skills. We sometimes find ourselves in a mess where coping skills that helped at some earlier point in our lives become a detriment at another point. When you’re young, no one tells you that there’s an expiration date on some of your coping skills. Doing what worked in the past is not always the answer.
We need to keep the things that work, and ditch the things that don’t.
Tim F. used to do a series of posts that he called (surely tongue-in-cheek) “deep thoughts” or something like that. We might have to revive that.
Open thread.
SpaceUnit
Actually, everyone’s first reaction to Covid was to stockpile toilet paper.
But it’s a minor point.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
I think there is a certain amount of taking things out on those you are the closest to. I think that is why there is so much slagging of allies in the comments and lashing out on those you have relatively mild disagreements with. It’s counterproductive, but not unusual. It also gets really old. I think if we are going to move forward, we have to let go of all grudges against anyone but the GOP. Those resentments hold us in place.. stuck
I also want to quibble with that framing. Coalitions are collections of groups. I wouldn’t admit someone into my group who hated transpeople. However, I would work with people in a different group on defeating Trump, even as I made it clear I’m not softening my support for LGBTQ+. I don’t think we have to like or agree with people to work with them. As someone said a while back, if the US and Europe could ally with Russia to defeat the Nazi’s, I can ally with all kinds of icky people to do the same.
kwAwk
I would say that ‘ditch the transfolk’ is different than hey we need to approach our transfolk policies differently at least in the near term.
If the goal is to have them accepted into society to be who they want to be and to be prosperous it might be different than transwomen=women.
Maybe give people time to get used to gender neutral bathrooms. Start a movement to make bathroom partitions go all the way to the floor and ceiling like they have in normal places.
Llelldorin
Good heavens, and thanks for the kind words! Honestly, I was trying to force myself to stop panicking and start thinking.
oldgold
Strange!
(AP) — Authorities revealed Friday that actor Gene Hackman died of heart disease and showed severe signs of Alzheimer’s disease a full week after his wife died of hantavirus in their home.
Chief Medical Investigator Dr. Heather Jarrell said it was possible that Hackman was not aware his wife was deceased in their home.
“Mr. Hackman showed evidence of advanced Alzheimer’s disease,” Jarrell said. “He was in a very poor state of health. He had significant heart disease, and I think ultimately that’s what resulted in his death.
WaterGirl
@kwAwk: It appears from many of your comments here about Trans issues that you are at best squishy on the idea of full rights for people who are trans, and you typically have a lot to say about that.
Let’s not make this thread about trans issues. That was an example, not the topic.
WaterGirl
@oldgold: That is so very sad.
Edit: and now I’m sorry I looked up hantavirus.
NotMax
Topical music break.
Absolutely Right.
sentient ai from the future
@WaterGirl: im glad you got to it first, but I think there’s a real question about how much derailing by those defending morally indefensible positions we should be expected to tolerate.
Steve LaBonne
@oldgold: Oh my God.
Steve LaBonne
@sentient ai from the future: I don’t tolerate that one, they are in my pie filter and have been for quite a while.
WaterGirl
@sentient ai from the future:
In my opinion, very little.
chemiclord
I think it’s also a matter of what one person thinks is working is going to be different than another’s.
“Make everything a spectacle” and “Don’t interrupt your enemies as they are making a mistake” are both historically effective approaches, and it’s not at all clear if one is going to be better than the other in this case.
NutmegAgain
@SpaceUnit: I know some folks who are currently starting to stockpile TP, again. Also some kinds of canned goods. Me, I think it’s premature to do that, but I understand the impulse. I think it helps people feel like they are in control, at a time when institutional expectations are haywire, chaotic, and dare I say… stochastic.
Asparagus Aspersions
Congressional office call recap:
I just got off the phone with my mostly-useless Republican congressman’s office, but I will give him credit for having staffers who answer the phone every single time. I’ve called weekly since the beginning of this godforsaken presidency (which started approximately 18,000 years ago, by my reckoning). I speak with a regular cast of male staffers who sound like they’re in their 20s. I have a rotating list of topics (Musk, Russia, etc) and I try to focus on one per call.
During today’s call, I asked what the congressman’s position was on Trump’s rhetoric about Canada being the 51st state. The staffer laughed out loud and said, “Well, that is just something that’s laughable. I don’t even know if the congressman has commented on it, because it’s so clearly unserious.”
I pointed out that you know who doesn’t think it’s unserious? Canadians. I told him that I’m married to a Canadian, and that our friends and family are certainly taking it seriously. Why? Because Trump is the president of the most powerful country on Earth, and so when he says something like this, unfortunately people are obliged to take it seriously. I pointed out that our state’s economy gets a huge boost every year from Canadian snowbirds, and that people are canceling their trips.
I don’t know how much effect my comments will have on the congressman, but at least the staffer had stopped laughing by the end of our conversation.
NutmegAgain
@oldgold: Damn, that’s sad. It also explains the dog locked in the closet who, presumably died a horrible death. It sounds like they loved their dogs, and nothing like that would happen purposefully.
Chetan Murthy
it’s funny you mention default response to COVID. I remember reading that the UK had a plan for bird flu, which consisted in “use antivirals to cushion the shock for the most vulnerable until you can get a vaccine, but otherwise let it rip thru the population to achieve herd immunity [their wording], don’t do any sort of physical distancing to prevent spread”. Which …. well, maybe it’d have worked for flu b/c (a) vaccines were pretty old-hat for the flu, it was a matter of ramping up the production machine, and antivirals -existed-. And the flu wasn’t as deadly as covid.
But for covid, it was a bad, bad plan. Too bad it was the only plan they had, so it’s what they went with. Social distancing? fugeddaboudit.
Steve LaBonne
@chemiclord: I hate to short-circuit the wars that go on around here on this point (actually I don’t hate to at all), but I think we need both, in channels that are preferably somewhat isolated from one another. We need some red meat to feed the troops, but we also have to persuade normies who don’t find our kind of red meat appetizing.
danielx
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
All too true, and I’ve caught myself getting snappish with the spousal unit and spawn on occasion through no fault of theirs. But when you’re in a state of suppressed rage during a lot of your waking hours, you have to remind yourself that it’s not because of the people closest to you.
As for the people who voted for this shit (enthusiastically), there’s no hope of alliance until they start getting seriously hurt – not getting paid for farm contracts, losing health care, etc. etc. They’re not even supportive of family members who have lost federal jobs.
WaterGirl
@chemiclord: Agree!
We don’t have to pick the perfect or the only way to move forward. We throw everything against the wall and see what sticks.
And what sticks with one set of voters or in one particular environment is not going to be the same as what sticks with another set, or on some other environment.
There is not one true faith that we all have to agree on. Except that we need to work together and use the rocks in our pockets against the bad guys.
Ramalama
@Llelldorin: You done good!
rikyrah
Question:
The Arab States have come up with their own plan to redevelop Gaza. It was around 52- 53 Billion.
Has there been a reply from this Administration or Israel to their plan?
Joy in FL
I appreciate what Llelldorin wrote and that WaterGirl shared it.
It was helpful to me.
rikyrah
@oldgold:
Please check in on your Elders.
oldgold
@NutmegAgain: “I know some folks who are currently starting to stockpile TP, again.”
Last week I was rattling around our
basementlower level looking for something or other and I ran across the Motherlode’s secret stash of toilet paper. A decade shortage of toilet paper and /or the Russian Army stops by to use our facilities, we are set.When questioned about this stash, she claimed everyone had one. Is this true?
Gloria DryGarden
@Joy in FL: link? Comment #? Reply to?
trollhattan
@oldgold:
Holy shit! Horrid fate for all and if true, my god, worst streaming feature film possible.
Hantavirus seems to get attention only rarely and for the most part is out of people’s minds. But Santa Fe seems like an apt location.
Shakti
Observation:I can’t guess what the politics are of those workers; but a lot of reasons that people have the positions they do or keep the peace with their horrible relatives is the implicit idea that they’ll come through in practical ways.
People who get positive tangible help and outreach now will remember it. That’s how fundies get a lot of people they wouldn’t otherwise.
If you are so inclined, of course.
Boston Herald,Thrust into unemployment, axed federal workers face relatives who celebrate their firing (archive ph link
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
Yes: [clears throat] “Egypt who? Never heard of him.”
mappy!
I don’t think there will be many here who will get this but one route that worked in the past, so well in fact that most states barred it, is electoral fusion. It would have to be implemented state by state, by referendum probably. It works. I live in one of the few states that allows it and it got me elected in a beet red municipal environment…
The point is to look for a way to make compromises to move forward to a point where there are enough votes to implement the desired outcome. Nancy pushed this, it all comes down to the votes. You have to have the votes.
Compromise now, call in as much of the IOU when you can. Start the process again. Get the votes.
Matt McIrvin
@oldgold: Well, that’s a far sadder outcome even than some I was expecting (carbon monoxide poisoning, some sort of murder-suicide).
rikyrah
@Shakti:
The Federal Hiring process is daunting. And, isn’t for the unqualified.
I have long suspected the hatred comes from the unqualified who weren’t able to pass muster and get hired for a Federal Job.
Matt McIrvin
@Asparagus Aspersions: Every Canadian I’ve ever talked to at length about US-Canada relations, going back decades, has at some point worried aloud, seriously, about invasion by the US. Even at times when no US citizen would regard that as anything other than the kind of joke you bring up to satirize American bellicosity without really meaning it.
Why do they do this? Because we’ve done it before (ask them what they were taught about the War of 1812). Because they all know the US drew up contingency plans for invading Canada during the Cold War if that became necessary or desired for some reason. Because you just don’t maintain a long, essentially undefended border with a sometimes aggressive military superpower without thinking about it. They take the idea as seriously as a heart attack, and always have.
So Trump deliberately poked at this, repeatedly, because he’s a bully and he loves poking people, and also he’s extremely stupid. Of course they’re going to take it seriously.
Shakti
@SpaceUnit: I kept trying to buy cleaning supplies; I kept trying to sew masks (omg). I panic bought more rice than we normally eat.
Hindbrain reactions:
My brain keeps telling me to act like it’s covid + hurricanes + prepare for internet outages/data loss and to buy all the things! accordingly but I haven’t really wanted to because of all these places sucking in actual quality and they gave project 2025 money.
Old redux: I am at covid levels of hair color and hair cut maintenance.
New: I have developed or attempted to develop a love of Duke’s Martinis [basically it’s mostly cold gin; I now have a gin now; and I have never been a gin liker.]
New: How the hell am I one responsible for making sure everyone else eats properly now?
Glidwrith
@SpaceUnit: The reaction I remember was liberals bought yeast for bread, Nazis went for guns.
Jeffg166
@oldgold:
Thanks for that information.
Redshift
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: One of the people who’s knowledgeable about autocracy (can’t remember which one) said that successful anti-autocrat movements involve joining together with a lot of people with whom you agree on nothing other than opposition to the autocrat.
Everything else is put aside until afterward. So they don’t get to say they’ll only join if we kick out the trans folks (or anyone else), but we don’t get to say they have to change their minds and like anyone in our coalition, just that they have to work with them and keep their mouths shut if they have a problem.
It may not be pleasant for any of us, but history shows that’s the way to go if you want to win.
Baud
WaterGirl
@Gloria DryGarden: Read the post up top. That’s what she is responding to.
SpaceUnit
@Shakti:
@Glidwrith:
I stockpiled scotch and peanuts.
WaterGirl
@Shakti: Wow. True members of the cult. Sad. Pathetic, really.
WTFGhost
One thing to keep in mind is, this is not entirely unlike 9/11. This wasn’t “a shock to the system,” this was a criminal event. Trump is taking control of the entire Federal government, even the parts he’s forbidden to control, and, Republicans are aiding and abetting, accomplices, co-conspirators, etc..
The *election* was a shock to the system, okay, like W’s election, and the attack (we can call this Trump’s 9/11), that was the mind-blowing, perception-breaking, consciousness affecting event.
And one good sign is, once the actual attack started, people shook off the shock to the system stuff fairly well, which is fairly normal.
Asparagus Aspersions
@Matt McIrvin: Yes indeed, they would be extremely foolish not to be worried, given current circumstances. I’ve been married to a Canadian for 15 years, have many Canadian friends, and none of them ever felt this concerned pre-Trump.
One of the most infuriating parts of the Trump years has been discussions with people who refuse to take him seriously, who just sort of wave off whatever insane thing he’s just said, and imply that I’m the idiot for being concerned about it. (I will say this is happening less lately).
But that was the vibe that this Republican staffer was giving off, the casual “ah well, invading our neighbor to north is just one of those wacky things our freewheeeling president says from time to time, and there’s no reason to worry your pretty little head about it.” It had clearly never occurred to him that in fact this is not just some hilarious talking point. He was stunned to hear that people were actually worried, but acknowledged that he understood why. Which is something, maybe.
Gloria DryGarden
@WaterGirl: ok
WaterGirl
@Joy in FL: What they wrote was helpful to me, too!
WaterGirl
@Gloria DryGarden: I wasn’t trying to be mean, but I would just have to repeat what’s up top in order to explain it.
Tenar Arha
@NutmegAgain:
In terms of stockpiling, I kind of did a lot of durable goods decisions after the election.
I bought a new car to replace my 20 year old car earlier than I planned, and replaced my laptop and iPad bc they were also more than a few years old. But my iPhone is a 15 pro so I didn’t bother with that. I replaced my coffee maker for one with a thermal carafe after I broke the second glass carafe this year. I also bought some of my allergy meds and supplements earlier than usual, as long as they were on sale at CVS/Costco, before I did my usual “transfer a little at a time to a smaller container that’s easier to use” on the ones I had.
🤔 OTOH I’m not really stockpiling food, but that’s because unless it’s really very shelf stable it’s a waste on one person. I do currently have the storage for one each of Costco sized toilet paper and paper towel giant multi-packs, so I only buy when I have like one Bounty or 1 six pack of Charmin left ;) anything more would be ridiculous, 😆 .
I do have other plans, but they’re either more like community building, or long term planning projects I’ve either been distracted from and/or that I’m not even started on, let alone done with.
ETA typo(s)
kissel
@kwAwk: that’s like saying give people time to ease out of their transphobia. Also Democrats don’t have any trans policies.
Gloria DryGarden
@WaterGirl: I was reading from the bottom. It would be fine to delete that comment. Sheepishly curling up
Gloria DryGarden
@WaterGirl: not taken as mean. It was my mistake.
scav
@Baud: That is suddenly a very ominous song.
WTFGhost
@WaterGirl: Just remember, the test for spaghetti is to throw *one* strand at the wall, to see if it sticks. If you throw the whole pot of spaghetti at the wall, it ruins your date. Especially if she was walking in the doorway *next* to the wall, and you have terrible aim, and, man, did she get pissed, when I suggested an erotic game with the sauce since the spaghe… never mind, I was *very* young.
Anyway: one strand, if it sticks, spaghetti’s done, though pasta done-ness is a personal preference. Just remember, if you like a good bite to your pasta, it’s “firm”, not “very al dente” which doesn’t actually make any sense.
She didn’t respond well to my correction regarding “al dente” either. Go figure!
Gloria DryGarden
@WTFGhost: a series of criminal events. A firehouse of them. Singular, only in a different meaning of the word.
Thanks for recasting it as criminal events, though. And it has been a series of overlapping shocks.
New Deal democrat
@Asparagus Aspersions:
@Matt McIrvin:
Last night on another thread I inquired if anyone had done any polling of Americans about T—-p’s threatening remarks about annexation of Canada.
it turns out a Canadian firm, AngusReed, did so back in January after T—-p’s first remarks. As you might expect, more Canadians took it seriously than Americans, but a majority of Canadians and a plurality of Americans thought he was just trolling. By now, I expect that has changed for Canadians, but suspect most Americans still think he is just trolling.
But to get to the nub of the issue, they found that 77% of Americans were against using any kind of economic or military coercion against Canada, with only 5% being okay with economic coercion, and only 1% in favor of military coercion. The rest (17%) expressed no opinion or weren’t sure.
We live in awful times, but this is a good result, showing that even GOPers aren’t buying T—-p’s line. Which means I’ll have plenty of company blocking the Peace Bridge if he does try anything.
Gloria DryGarden
@WTFGhost: im sorry you weren’t able to convert your cooking catastrophe into an adventure. There are just so many ways to have misunderstandings.
but sorry about the failed adventure. The young times gave us all kinds of memories, didn’t they?
But, back to the topic of this thread…
Dave M
Pretty sure the party needs to include a lot of people who don’t think trans people have any business playing women’s sports. (No matter how few trans people in women’s sports there are. And let me tell you, the number is small enough it’s not worth losing a single vote over)
Also, this is one of the least important issues facing the country right now…so mentioning it at all is extremely counterproductive. Purity tests on trivial issues have to go.
TBone
@NotMax: always something new to me and interesting!
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Redshift:
I agree, but I do worry that a lot of us are not able to do this. I think there is a tendency not just to expect people to have evolved views but to view any civil, ongoing contact with people who don’t have the same views as a kind of betrayal. If we are going to win this thing, we have to work with racists, xenophobes, misogynists, homophobes, transphobes, etc. There are people who are one of these things, but targeted by MAGA because they belong to a different target group. There are also people who are one of those things, but uncomfortable with the rest. Those people can be turned and leveraged against MAGA, but not if everything is a purity test.
Matt McIrvin
@Asparagus Aspersions: I think that Trump is probably not planning invasion but DOES seriously think that he can use economic sanctions, hollering and banging the table to coerce Canada into joining the United States, as “the 51st state” or perhaps as a politically powerless territory. Because that’s how Trump thinks. Because he’s stupid.
Ohio Mom
@Matt McIrvin: Oh I am pretty sure the U.S. military has drawn up plans to invade every corner of the earth. They have a department of planning invasions and they stay in practice by making silly plans.
Gloria DryGarden
@New Deal democrat: A week or two ago, commenter Jay posted one evening about his National guard duties. It’s called something else, in Canada, but I’m guessing from his description. He said they called his unit up, usually, they call up just one unit at a time, but they called up all the units. He’s been out on trainings etc.
I’m relieved that Canada is taking it seriously.
too bad our poking mocking bully, mr orange, can’t take being poked, can’t take any of what he dishes out. And it’s hard to tell what stuff he’s running as an emotion-getting distraction, and what’s really the thing.
Jake Tapper said on Colbert the other night, he thinks trumple really believes what he says.
HopefullyNotcassandra
If somebody tells you to ditch trans folk, don’t ignore it. Ignoring something like that is like permission imho
If you are close to that person and know they will hear you even if it takes awhile try this one —
“hey, I will not hear that kind of talk.” Then, leave. If they do it again, say “hey, don’t you remember? I won’t stand for that kind of talk.” It usually works. Anybody with whom you are close shares basic values with you, right? They just need to be pulled out of the toxic sludge the GOP has created.
if they are not close to you, try using Greek mythology. It has the benefit of being ancient and interesting simultaneously.
Tell them about Ganymede. Look the myth up if needed. In sum, Ganymede is both female and male and is so beautiful they become a god, immortal and Zeus’s cup bearer. This story generally boggles the mind of the ignorant, but essentially decent, folks most of us will encounter most of the time. The myth changes perspectives. It does.
if they still sound like Steven Miller
just run.
Most people I have met simply are not Steven Miller no matter what hard core maga says. They believe in the good old golden rule right down to the tips of their toes. Maybe I have been unduly fortunate in the selection of people to whom I have been exposed, but I rather doubt that.
No doubt ignorant people can act despicably horrible and cause great pain. But ignorance can be rectified with knowledge, too. Thank goodness or would not life be necessarily “nasty, brutish and short”? (to steal something from Hume we had been trying to fix in this country until recently)
Gloria DryGarden
@Ohio Mom: and sometimes they do it.
it’s hard to be proud
TBone
@oldgold: no, it is not. We do have some extra boxes of tissues strategically placed around the place, and always save newsprint items for cats to vomit on which, although not ideal, will do in a pinch!
HopefullyNotcassandra
@sentient ai from the future: Karl Popper has arrived
I am with Popper, although I do understand Wittgenstein has a poker to explain ; )
TBone
@HopefullyNotcassandra: I ditched a former friend after berating her for bigotry. She’d accepted a trans person to date one of her offspring, but then one day confided her “true” feelings, causing me to unload mine. I had to explain the tolerance paradox as a social contract which she’d just voided.
WaterGirl
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Common cause now, if we want to keep our country. We don’t have to pretend to agree on everything; we just need to work together make sure we end up with a functioning democracy.
We can’t sell different flavors of people down the river – part of what this country is built on is the right of everyone to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – in order to get there.
But we don’t have to actively fight about our differences as we’re getting there. If someone hates flavor X of people so much that they can’t make common cause, then I say we don’t need them on our team.
frosty
Re: doing what worked in the past:
“Tomorrow will probably look like today which looks a lot like yesterday… until it doesn’t.”
(I may have swiped this from one of our Valued Commenters)
Dan B
@New Deal democrat: A commenter on Joe.My.God blog said that Trump wants to discuss the shared waterways with Canada and revisit the border which he believes is wrong. Nothing deranged and threatening there. /s
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Shakti: We must find a way to be kind to these people. Fired for nothing, their life work insulted and abandoned by family and friends
what a bucket full of trauma.
frosty
@Steve LaBonne: In my pie filter too.
CCL
@HopefullyNotcassandra: Thomas Hobbes
New Deal democrat
@Gloria DryGarden:
My bet is that T—-p’s Daddy Vladdy told him that invasions are what all the Big Boyz and Great Men do, and that T—-p will have his backing (hah!). As for T—-p, like Stalin he always pushes maximally when he is met with mush, and only stops when he faces steel.
I don’t know who it will be against, but I put better than 50/50 odds that T—-p will start some war of aggression.
Doc Sardonic
Don’t stockpile toilet paper, just do what I did…….attach a pressure washer and leaf blower to the toilet
Baud
@Dan B:
I bet a bunch of northern states would love to move the border south right now.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Ohio Mom: Sadly, it looks like we are no longer planning against the destabilizer, aggressor of this planet, the tiny Russian thug.
Ruckus
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I was in the USN, (just in case anyone forgot…) and started following politics over 60 yrs ago. I also worked in professional sports for ten years and traveled all over the US 8 months each week for that ten years. I’ve seen a lot of this country and talked to a lot of people from 49 of the states. One of the things I noticed was there is a difference between normal humans and many well monied ones. Most, but not all the monied, thought that they were far superior to everyone else, and it’s because of their money. And they didn’t have to be very well monied just a tad above average. Some of them didn’t see their money as anything but an elevator to be above everyone else. One could easily understand that at least 2 of them may think of themselves as higher/above all other humans. In an actual democracy they aren’t.
Jeffro
I see that Poland’s answer to its new understanding of trumpovian insanity is to…consider building or acquiring nuclear weapons.
well DONE, Republicans! your collective action problem is now spilling over into nuclear proliferation!
one question, GOP: your kids do live here on the same planet as the rest of us, right?
sab
@kwAwk: Huh! As a woman I have not interest in gender neutral bathrooms. The idea appalls me. Men in my bathroom? Disgusting and terrifying. The disgusting side I see at home. I live with men in a household with unisex bathrooms. The terrifying side is obvious to all women, cis or trans.
On the other hand, I have no problem whatever with transwomen in my bathroom.
I think the TERF idea that transwomen are still men is idiotic. I want those women safely in women’s bathrooms and not risking assault in men’s. Which is part of why I don’t want men in our bathrooms. Men in women’s bathrooms are scary (and messy. I am married to a man and have male stepchildren). Transwomen are not.
Dan B
@Baud: Washington state and the other west coast states would be glad to be new provinces. Or at least I would.
am
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I came to say the same thing.
Alliances can exist for a lot of reasons. I will work with anyone willing to restore respect for the rule of law, American institutions, and democracy. I would work vigorously with anyone in any area of agreement to further ideals I hold important.
I would hope they were nice people and I’d agree with them in other areas. But I will work against them just as vigorously to support transgendered people, or any other area we disagree.
I will work with them in some areas at the same time as I work against them in others, without batting an eyelash.
The “lose the weird transfolk first” is reductive framing of an issue. If the house is on fire, I don’t care what people holding buckets of water think of my ideals, just whether they will help put out the fire. You can disagree after the crisis is over, or even do both at the same time if you must. Forcing yourselves to think in false dichotomies is imprisoning yourself and counterproductive.
The objection is compromise. Obviously trading support for transgendered rights is a unacceptable. Not least of all because it shows the potential parter is a moron, and can’t correctly and rationalize prioritize.
We can enter into alliances with people we disagree with on fundamental beliefs. We can’t compromise.
You can say I’m an asshole pedant, but language guides thinking. In emergencies clear thinking is absolutely imperative. And we are in an emergency.
It is also worth noting that dealing with the present crisis is imperative for preserving transgendered rights – those are lost if we fail.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@TBone: that must have been awful. I have difficulty sticking around that long when something like that happens. The door becomes my new friend as I quickly make my way through it. You gave your ex-friend some excellent food for thought. Hopefully, that food was eaten!
Suzanne
@kwAwk:
Just as a FYI…. the architects in your life are working on this. It costs more, and it represents change, and change is scary. But I’m seeing much greater openness to this among my clients.
sab
@Gloria DryGarden:Newspapers. What a good idea! With seven cats, somebody is always barfing up a hairball or something they shouldn’t have eaten somewhere. And they hate being moved while they are barfing.
ETA I think I meant to respond to TBold but you two were commenting amongst yourselves and I got confused.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jeffro: Poland already has higher military spending as a percentage of their gdp, in comparison with other countries in Europe. They also lost the highest percentage of their population in wwIl. So, it follows.
Jeffro
I know it’s not funny, and it’s important to take the Orange Airhorn’s pronouncements seriously AND literally, and yet…
…the idea of him trying to walk someone, anyone through whatever theory of “they drew the U.S.-Canadian border WRONG!!1!” is coursing through his addled synapses at the moment is giving me the giggles.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@CCL: quite right. My apologies
Jeffro
oh yes indeed. mid-Atlantic ones, too
oldgold
@Baud: 54-40 or Fight!
Hoodie
@Dan B: Yes, he’s such a geography scholar.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Doc Sardonic: What a visual
electric or gas powered
do I dare inquire?
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: I need to look this up. My parents were so tolerant of gayness after my sister came out to them, and helped their adult friends with accepting their gay kids. So they say. I was privy to the crap they said in private about my sister and her lifestyle; I found it pretty hurtful.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: I doubt they will find openness about that from the people who actually use the restrooms. i hope someone is thinking about them.
Doc Sardonic
@HopefullyNotcassandra: Aye, ye don’t waste time mucking about with the wee tiny gas ones…..ye be manly about it and use the nukular powered ones.
sentient ai from the future
@am: there’s a section in “army of shadows” where the protagonist, a cell organizer in the French resistance, makes common cause with some landed gentry. A Royalist, who previously wouldnt have pissed on a republican like gerbier if he was on fire.
War makes strange bedfellows. If that’s where we are, so be it, and let’s stick to organizing around pushing the shitbird out. I’m comfortable with that.
But if this is politics as usual, then I’m not going to waste my time with transphobes et al.
Redshift
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I think the key is to remember that we’re just going to be coordinating with these people, we’re not going to be joining one big happy family and spending all our time together. You just have to put up with them for actions, we’re not going to be inviting them here.
Birdie
@Dave M: At this point trans women in sports in a red herring. Every trans member of the military is being stood down. There is no coalition important enough to normalise this degree of dehumanising discrimination.
Also the discrimination won’t stop with trans folks, thinking otherwise is naive.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Remember the “Jesusland map” meme that was going around after the 2004 election? Blue states join the “United States of Canada”?
(It worked well visually for the 2004 map because the Kerry-voting states in the continental US that time all formed a region contiguous with Canada. For the 2024 map there would be exclaves.)
TBone
@Gloria DryGarden: I did not tolerate her intolerance because I viewed our mutual friendship as based on mutual tolerance.
https://conversational-leadership.net/tolerance-is-a-social-contract/
Suzanne
@WaterGirl: The airport in Kansas City recently put in all-gender bathrooms and they’re really nice. Nicer than the previous gender-segregated restrooms. Some dust-up at first, but it seems to be going OK.
Glidwrith
I never considered that there’s a variety of coping skills other than fight, freeze or run away. Something to think about.
Hoodie
@Jeffro: Any discussion of Trump should consciously avoid any offering that something he says has merit because even starting down that road is like seeing the head of Medusa.
Sister Golden Bear
For all the folks who say we should go ahead and work with folks who don’t think trans people should exist…. I take it that you’re OK with working with people who think Jews/Blacks/gays/<insert minority here> shouldn’t exist? For the greater good, amirite
Because it’s never about just the bathrooms, nor sports. Conservatives themselves talk about how those are “gateway drugs” towards getting cis people to buy into full on eliminationism.
Dan B
@Hoodie: Lol! Trump = geography scholar. Har de Har har!
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Doc Sardonic: Oh my !
Tenar Arha
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I think you’re right about allyship too. But maybe it’s like the no bullying kid focused program “You Can’t Say You Can’t Play.” IOW you can’t be allies if you try to exclude anyone, then you’re out of bounds & in time out. Or something like that.
I’ve also discovered I have to stop reading the many varieties of the FAFO stories. I spent the entire last week furiously obsessing over that WaPo profile of the 24 year old grad student in Michigan. You know the really well written one where she realized she’d bought a sow’s ear from the 🍊 about IVF & also lost her NPS job. I realized it was because there was no true repentance or willingness to repair in the story, just a young woman feeling terribly surprised and sorry for herself. 🤢
Anyway I had bit of a rolling epiphany about how they all seem to get me too angry. I get mad at the ignorance, also the lack of reporters asking just once “so you now believe GOP & Trump lied to you, how do you plan to vote in the future?” Plus, they all seem to be designed to infuriate Democrats for clicks. Like the endless diner safaris, the people in these profiles aren’t the people who read this stuff. So who’s it for? I think it’s for hate clicks and whoever wants to feel smugly superior.
And I don’t like how I feel after reading them too. I don’t think all this schadenfreude is good for me. Better to focus on the people that will need help. Or the people finally ready to ask for or admit they should now help. /sigh
ETA typo
Matt McIrvin
@Jeffro: Every border ever drawn has a weird arbitrary story associated with it, and often surveying errors are involved. The Northwest Angle of Minnesota, at the Lake of the Woods, is a famous one. But if you value international relations you don’t poke at that as a way of sowing conflict.
The US and Canada have had a bunch of disputed sea borders for ages, and there’s even one little bit of disputed land, Machias Seal Island off the coast of Maine. It’s a puffin sanctuary that gets some birdwatching tourism. Canada maintains a lighthouse there to maintain its sovereignty claim, and the dispute over the surrounding area has made environmental efforts there more difficult. But no intelligent leader is going to press the issue when international agreements are being negotiated.
Gloria DryGarden
@sab: a small stack of newspapers in every room, easy to grab for those sudden barfing moments.
re hairballs, my cat loved that hair ball prevention ointment, had a brown color, like light molasses. He begged for it, like it was a treat. He’d stand by the drawer where I kept it, and ask. He stopped having hairballs, which was nice.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Sister Golden Bear: that is the conundrum.
welcome to “the Lottery.”
If human rights are not universal, how are they any rights at all?
Steve LaBonne
@Matt McIrvin:
I think I see the problem…
Denali5
I think much of the hostility towards trans people is simply that people do not or will not admit that they know these people. It arises from a fear of the unknown- how to handle uncomfortable situations. When a family member is involved, perceptions change, because first of all you love your family member.
YY_Sima Qian
@Llelldorin:
@WaterGirl:
Wise words.
Jay
full thread here:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1898019984623665325.html#google_vignette
thread here:
https://nitter.poast.org/jburnmurdoch/status/1897949425701429317#m
Steve LaBonne
@HopefullyNotcassandra: Also if people claim to oppose fascism but value their bigotry more than their anti-fascism to the extent that they are not willing to temporarily shut up about the bigotry, can they really be counted on allies?
sentient ai from the future
@Denali5: as a frequent helper in a parents-of-trans-kids message board, I can tell you with certainty that just because it’s a family member, that doesn’t reliably break down the internal bias, which makes it all the more tragic for these kids.
Hoodie
@Jay: Guess he wants to get an early start on The Great Resource Wars after climate change really kicks in. Always thinking ahead!
VFX Lurker
Canadians have Laura Secord Chocolates. It’s the Canadian equivalent of “Paul Revere Chocolates,” and I read the 1812 story of Laura Secord thwarting an American invasion on the back of a box gifted to me for Christmas.
It was nice chocolate.
Gloria DryGarden
@Suzanne: we have them at Denver urban gardens, and an indie cinema. And at the UU, of course. But even Target has a family bathroom, which is another helpful safe space.
I worry about female comfort at the shared sink space, during period clean up situations. But men have heard about these things, right?
TBone
@HopefullyNotcassandra: I shoved it into her mouth and forced her to swallow. Unfortunate end to a multi-year relationship that started to go bad when Ukraine was invaded and she started talking tankie. I tolerated that after explaining why she was so very wrong, and then her bullshit became too much, culminating in the “true colors” conversation whereupon I let her have it in no uncertain terms.
Jay
@Gloria DryGarden:
Our go to hairball “fix” was a squirt of vaseline out of a syringe. Good for about a month. Made the hairballs come out in the poop.
am
@sentient ai from the future:
The UK and Russia were allies to defeat the Axis. It didn’t become the new business as usual. If they could do it, anyone can do it.
It is easy. Ask yourself, “can we achieve these rights if American democracy is dismantled”. If not, then you have to solve your problems in the right order. First save democracy, then take care of other business.
Allow me to amuse myself and illustrate this with a riddle:
Q: After the state of the union, who was the biggest asshole – Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic leadership, the reps who voted to censure Al Green, or the Democrats that protested in various ways?
A: None of the above. It was the president, and it isn’t even remotely close.
YY_Sima Qian
@Jay: Neither Türkiye nor the PRC are revanchist in the way Putin is. Both are hegemonic, w/ Türkiye building up proxies in Syria & the PRC in Myanmar. The PRC’s claim over Taiwan is long standing, & inherited from the ROC (which the vast majority of the world has chosen not to challenge, even if many do not explicitly support it, either). Both (I think) have border disputes.
Putin wants to revise internationally recognized borders that Russia had agreed to, to reconstruct the Russian Empire. Trump is taking it one step further by seeking to revise centuries old internationally recognized borders than the US had long agreed to, incorporate territories that have never been part of the US in any iteration/incarnation, to be seized/coerced from allies/partners, no less.
Emily B.
@NutmegAgain: When I was in Montréal this week, I heard a radio commentator remarking that the US gets a large proportion of its toilet paper from Canada and is not TP-independent.
Just saying.
TBone
@VFX Lurker: that’s really cool!
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: dear gods!
TBone
@am: excellent illustration.
sab
@Jay: Wherever there is money to be made by being a sociopath sociopaths will gather.
That is why rule of law actually matters a lot. This isn’t rocket science. It is kindergarden 101.
ETA Jay I am very happy you are still here with us in your far away foreign country that my nutjob president is fucking with.
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
It’s not about political actions, it’s about internal political beliefs, the Political Compass.
Gloria DryGarden
@am: as usual, I appreciate your comment
TBone great minds…
Dan B
TBone
@Hoodie: 🎯
WaterGirl
@Sister Golden Bear: If they are saying “i’ll be on your side if you ditch [insert any group here] then I think we tell them to get bent, and tell them to come back when they think everyone deserves human rights.
If we work side by side against Trump and I don’t talk about my pet issue and they don’t talk about theirs, and we aren’t doing anything to harm any of the groups, then I think we all work to one main goal.
Do you think that’s wrong?
Suzanne
@Gloria DryGarden: Period clean-up is a thing I’ve given some thought to. Menstrual cups are becoming more and more common, and those are supposed to be rinsed out in a sink. On my current project, we are proposing a bigger multi-stall all-gender restroom concept (with ADA wheelchair and ambulatory stalls), as well as additional private restrooms nearby of varying types — family with built-in changing table and toddler restraint, person-of-size toilet (which is bigger than typical ADA), and an additional room for an adult changing table. So if you need period cleanup, you can also use a more private option.
Ruckus
@oldgold:
Is this true?
No, it isn’t. It’s likely not untrue for some number but to be largely true I’d bet no, and very quickly. Now I have seen store shelves pretty much out of TP but not completely. And that same store a week later was fully stocked. And still is.
WTFGhost
@kwAwk: Here’s what I think the Democratic Party should do, re Transfolk: don’t crap on them, or their allies; don’t join in snickering, and try to recast things if you can.
So: women hold a “die in” over the cost of menstrual products; you think it’s stupid. Some guys come in and mock it; instead of laughing along, say “well – when did you care enough to kick up a fuss over something?” You don’t have to *support* them, or the protest, you just have to be neutral – not fighting it, maybe even kicking in “they have a web page; did you read it to prove they’re as stupid as you think they are?”
Well – that’s what it means to caucus with feminists. You might not always agree, but you *never* snipe. You try to fight fair if you fight. And, you don’t join in with any hateful mockery.
To caucus with transfolk, you don’t have to, for example, hate JK Rowling – you just have to say “well, I know some transfolk have an issue; I don’t know much about it, but before you start jumping on their case, did you actually read their case, and see why they’re so upset?”
You don’t have to support schools allowing kids to try out new pronouns, but, before you start “Just asking questions, (or JAQing)” find out what actually *happens*. Boys don’t start using the girls bathroom when trying out “she/her,” and I’d reckon you’d find that there’s counseling and testing involved, and careful monitoring. Here’s the fun part: you can scold someone with flames that would scorch the hide of a lead elephant in a team of a dozen, without knowing any facts by simply pointing out that the should have these facts, before “JAQing off” “Why didn’t you know what counseling is demanded before a child switches pronouns? This is important stuff, and there’s no room for morons like you, who haven’t learned the very basics!”
So, if you’re wondering about how to comfortably caucus with groups where you have some concerns, remember: sometimes, all you need to do is push back. A lot of sniggering juveniles trimmed family planning assistance from the Obama stimulus package in 2008 “hee gurlz have lots of teh sez” and such – they were *terrible* allies, of the sort Sister Machine Gun Of Quiet Harmony (dear lord I hope I remembered that right) calls out in comment 2. “WTF, these are medical clinics that will keep the lights on, and the staff full, whenever they are needed, and dear LORD I hope you love sex with condoms because ain’t no one getting fluid-bonded with *you* with those attitudes.”
(Is “fluid-bonded” still a thing? I feel old.)
It’s really not hard to be a good ally, most of the time. And, here’s the thing: it’s okay to laugh at the occasional funny joke about transfolk (I haven’t heard one yet, but, let’s assume there are such), or to laugh in shock, and later realize you shouldn’t have laughed, at an unfunny joke about transfolk (I know *lots* of examples of these!). And you don’t have to do the awkward, liberal guilt hangover afterward, either.
But you gotta want to purge the hate, so if you laugh at a joke, it’s maybe a little mean, but not *poison-mean*, see? Lots of jokes are a bit mean, after all. And you gotta want to show the hate just isn’t *right*. “WTF? Bathroom bills? They’re just so assholes can have trans people they hate arrested.”
So you can be a full ally, a good partner, and not a full-throated supporter of *everything*; just, we’re all eating out of the same pot, so let’s not defecate where we eat, as it were.
Harrison Wesley
@Gloria DryGarden: I’ll have to give that a try. My neighbors are really tired of me suddenly barfing up hairballs.
RaflW
For long-range organizing, it can be worth it to do coalitions on selected issues with people one may have real disagreements in other areas. And it can, again longer-term, help broaden the coalition or move people off of beliefs they had which were a potential rub, but weren’t the issue being worked in that coalition space.
My personal example was being at a multi-org table for several years working on job access, training and retention for women and for Black and other POC folks in the Twin Cities. For years, in gov’t funded construction, the private contractors sucked ass (this is a policy term, thank you) at meeting diversity goals.
The coalition I joined made a lot of progress. And, of course, Black faith leaders and NGO heads were part of that. Some were known to be quite conservative on LGBTQ issues (LGBTQ id weren’t measured goals of the fed. dollars being spent, btw).
When the anti-same-sex marriage state amendment fight got rolling in MN, the ex-Army, Black, ‘tough guy’ (and also sometimes softie!) leader of the table let me know privately that he was having active conversations with Black pastors to ‘cool it’ on anti-gay stuff. And this leader said it was in no small part because I did the coalition work and stayed true to that table’s mission.
And I had done enough organizing to know that sometimes, an ally using their positional power to get an opponent to shift to neutral was a genuine and strategically sufficient win.
Jay
@Dan B:
I forget where I saw it, and I haven’t been able to find it again, but there was a graph of a poll showing what percentages Americans thought were “people amongst them” and what the census showed there were.
Poll respondents thought that 20% of the US were trans, 45% were “undocumented workers”, etc.
Teh stupid doesn’t just burn, it kills.
sab
@Dan B: We think we don’t know them but we do. Like gays 50 years ago.
I had a weird nephew who is now a normal niece. I knew something was up. But I did not know I had a step-grandaughter who is now a step-grandson.
Two in one family not biologically connected. Seems like more of that than extremely rare. Just people keeping quiet when they are in pain or turmoil.
YY_Sima Qian
@Jay: In that case, yes. & Orban/Modi may be even more topical, given where the U.S. polity is coming from. But Trump may see Erdogan & Modi as too institutionally constrained, & Orban, Putin, Xi & Kim the 3rd are his real role models.
However, as I said, Xi, Modi, Erdogan (& MBS/MBZ) are all also developmentally minded, which is absolutely missing from Trump, Putin & Kim.
am
@Gloria DryGarden: Thank you. I look forward to going back to lurk in the shadows for another 20 years. But something in the Alito dissent on Dep of State v AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition that Betty Cracker posted snapped something in me. I guess we all have our lines.
Something about that – pardon me – amoral, ghoulish, arrogant sack of crap crammed into a human costume and his 3 co-signers made me realize we had to get our act together. So I am here to help in my own small way.
TBone
Now is where I remember what Jane Fonda said when she accepted the Life Achievement Award given by her Union:
https://youtu.be/Z_v0NJ8_8ps?si=Jlj2eENENfgXulqT
Chef’s kiss of on-topic speech!
Gloria DryGarden
@Suzanne: brilliant. Yes, I was thinking of menstrual cups, and a sponge, both of which I used for years. There’s often at least one private toilet with sink, in the all gender bathroom suite. Depends on the design.
LeftCoastYankee
I once had a therapist explain to me that dysfunctional was a term misused or misunderstood in general usage. That it was better to think of it as continuing to respond to a situation in a way that worked previously but is no longer effective or applicable.
West Coast folks buying water for a pandemic was not initially surprising but after quick self reflection they moved on.
Deciding to poison yourself with horse paste because your favorite grievance merchant recommended it, and doubling down? That kind of laps dysfunctional.
Gloria DryGarden
@am: I think your comments add a balancing and moderating influence, which is calming, esp if there’s some internecine fighting, or lots of pie reactions. I hope you’ll comment more often.
lovely apt description of whatshisname.
Jay
Poland is pulling out of the Ottawa Treaty.
The key parts of the Ottawa Treaty is signatories ban cluster munitions and landmines.
They have asked France to spread their nuclear umbrella over Poland and are making “mouth noises” about a Polish Nuclear Triad.
Pussreboots
@SpaceUnit: Llelldorin stock piled hot sauce. (I’m married to him)
Suzanne
@Gloria DryGarden: I just want to note, because I see people ask a lot about why bathrooms are the way they are…. it’s because bathrooms cost a lot of money and space to build, and they’re “non-revenue-generating”.
So, if you see good bathrooms…. pass some praise along. My client right now is looking at our proposals, and they are not sure about it. It represents a change, and they don’t want to alienate anyone. They’re going to conduct a survey of their users to gauge reactions.
But these changes cost money, and building owners won’t do better unless they get incentive to do so.
Sister Golden Bear
@WaterGirl:
I have no problem with that. The problem with agreeing to work with transphobes is that they inevitably do try to harm us.
We’ve have a long history of being thrown to the wolves by people telling us to “wait our turn” for the “greater good.” Or sorrowfully telling us that you know they’d like to help, but there’s more important goals. Tired of being the unfortunate child in Omelas.
There was a discussion in the thread that shall not be named about how minority folks see the world differently and this one — we pay a lot more attention to background and context. I don’t have Irish Alzheimer’s, but I do have a lifetime being told these sorts of things. So if I’m too sensitive,* that’s why.
*Not saying you’re saying this, but it’s the thing that’s how it’s commonly characterized.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: I think that’s what my stuff was, some flavored Vaseline. Like the syringe solution.
sometimes I really miss having a cat..
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
It’s not about DJTdiot, it’s the political compass of Rethug voters. And it is a big shift towards the far right ideals that even Nigel’s “Reform”, the AfD and even Le Pen reject.
Ruckus
@Dave M:
This answer is about the larger population, not BJ folks.
Some mention it as a diversion. But some see it as changing the nation completely. It of course won’t but some humans see any change as a problem because then they have to accept change, and they can’t understand that. Because some see any change as making it worse for them. Their vision is called tunnel vision.
Dan B
@sab: I’ve known half a dozen trans people and only one was not great, a F to M who probably overdid the testosterone a bit. The rest were wonderful happy people.
Gvg
@Dave M: life or death for trans. They are being encouraged to die and violent people are being encouraged to kill them. A few years ago most of the violent people hadn’t even heard of trans people, now every malignant person in our society is being aimed at them. I am not ok with that. It’s kind of the point in fighting a Trump. They are already getting around to almost everyone else. I am a white woman and I feel under attack even before Trump won. Don’t call it a trivial issue. It’s not. You are spouting disinformation that dismisses the issue as just bathrooms and sports. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about privacy, personal choices, mental health, medical rights, science and favoring one version of religion over the choice individuals make which seems to me to be anti freedom of religion. I doubt I covered all the serious parts of the issue, those are just the ones that occurred to me quickly.
Gloria DryGarden
@Pussreboots: I’d stock pile gingery Asian bbq sauce.
But so glad there will be spiciness at your house!
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
Shitforbrains doesn’t think, he responds. He just thinks that he’s so great that he must know everything. He gets everything confused with nothing. He’s not real bright AND he’s aging out. If we live long enough it happens to all of us. Some do it better, some do it far worse. Shitforbrains is in group 2.
Gloria DryGarden
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: earlier today, someone said,
That applies to so many situations. Whoever it was, I agree strongly.
Ruckus
@Gloria DryGarden:
When someone doesn’t know or can’t admit that they don’t know everything or aren’t the smartest person in the room, even when they are alone, it is a serious problem. Especially if they are in a position of power. And shitforbrains is there.
Suzanne
@Sister Golden Bear: To me, to meaningfully be in coalition means that you’re willing to show up for others who are not you and put their interests ahead of your own, or that of your group. I am really distrustful of people like you describe for that reason. I don’t think they want to show up for anyone else.
Gloria DryGarden
@Suzanne: Thank you for designing our bathrooms!
Separate topic, why are the men’s bathrooms closer, and the women’s farther on down a hall? Nearly always.
unless it’s to leave room for our longer slower lines… I see it as a slight.
WTFGhost
There’s another point to consider about this.
Let’s say some evangelicals are uncomfortable with talk of Trump being the Second Coming, and ally with us for the midterms. That’s an *election* alliance, we’re not friends, we’re not pretending to be friends, we’re going to snipe at each other a bit, but, we’ll all agree, Trump is the big target.
If the same group said “we’ll join your coalition, but only if you cut back on support for transfolk,” that proves they can’t be an ally, they can’t caucus with us. They can only be with us for a cause. Maybe they’ll get interested in feeding the hungry, sheltering the needy, caring for the sick and imprisoned, that kind of thing, and we can work together on a bill or something.
Those are people you must never think of as friends, because they will never be your friends. They will knife you in the back at the earliest opportunity. Your friends will at least avoid crapping on the causes you find important.
Now, in that same vein, “election ally vs coalition ally”, once, I tried to float an idea that, while I’d never call a dementia patient with bowel incontinence (even if it was from snorting Adderall), who resembles a fat toad with a Jim Henson creation on his head a “fat, ugly, diaper-messing, toad, being skull-fucked, by a rabid wombat.”
Unless… unless that was Donald Trump, pre-election day, 2024.
What you do for an *election* can be very different from what you’d do for a *cause*. And the best part is, you can share something hateful like that (“fat, ugly…”), with a note that “what did that Trump shirt say, Eff your feelings? Well, this is where that kind of thinking leads! I mean, this *is* funny, if you could laugh at such terrible subject matter, but that is no excuse…”.
So you can scold the behavior, say it’s unacceptable, while still slipping a stiletto under Donnie’s fingers. (Sr., of course – Junior’s hands probably vibrate too much, you’d need to sharpen an effing TUNING fork to keep up with that cokehead…”.)
Suzanne
@Gloria DryGarden: I’ve never seen any research about men’s rooms being closer than women’s rooms on average to anything important. Usually they’re entered off a common corridor. Sometimes there’s architectural weirdness to accommodate, like columns or mechanical shafts or something, that might affect where the bathroom goes.
Gloria DryGarden
@Ruckus: wisdom vs fake omniscience.
My dad taught me the word omniscience as a kid, said he was omniscient, then promptly said something that revealed he didn’t know everything. To see if I’d catch him out, I suspect. And I sure did. It was a great demo.
Whatever his flaws, sometimes he was a good teacher. Although, sometimes he thought his opinion was right, and he was impenetrable. Oops. In theory, one knows better, in practice, one is still human, I guess.
Pussreboots
@Gloria DryGarden: There’s probably gingery Asian BBQ sauce in the stockpile. @Llelldorin loves to cook and loves hot sauce … or any sauce with spice. If there isn’t, there’s all the ingredients to make some from scratch (including fresh ginger root)
Gloria DryGarden
@Suzanne: it’s my personal research. I’m Keeping track.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Read the post? What kind of crazy talk is that?
Gloria DryGarden
@Pussreboots: good! Life without ginger is unimaginable.
Dave M
@Gvg: I specifically only addressed sports, so thanks for responding to what I didn’t write. Your other items are all real issues, and lumping sports in with them was an own goal.
Pussreboots
@Gloria DryGarden: Especially telling re women’s restrooms is in buildings that were forced to become “co-ed.” The men’s restroom will always be on the ground floor and the first women’s restroom will be on the second or third floor.
Gretchen
@rikyrah: My daughter’s ex-husband checks in on us when there are storm warnings “time to check in on the olds”. I love that young man.
Soprano2
@oldgold: This is one of my biggest fears, that something will happen to me and hubby will be so bad he doesn’t realize what happened and will die too. He’s not that bad yet, but he may be like that eventually.
Denali5
@sentient ai from the future: Could you give me a link to the parents of trans kids message board?
Gloria DryGarden
@Omnes Omnibus: I did! But only after she suggested. I outed myself: I read from the bottom. It cuts down on the volume of troubling news, to some extent.
but yes, I look like a silly one. Oh well.
Glad you’re back by the way. I’d taken to sometimes just getting the news you reposted, on bsky for a minimum of info, and increased calm.
information overload is real
btw, also, since there’s a poke thing happening, aren’t you afraid that your nym is awfully close to the word omniscience? It’s a charming echo. Do you have to be careful?
Gretchen
@rikyrah: I think you’ve got something there. The incompetents are resentful that others are doing better than they are, and tell themselves that those people have an unfair advantage, not that they’re just better qualified.
Denali5
@oldgold: Seems strange that the report does not mention Gene Hackman’s doctor’s diagnosis. Most of us olds go to our doctor fairly often.
Suzanne
@Gloria DryGarden: About 25 years ago, the model building codes that most of the local building codes are based on codified the quantity of toilets and lavatories required in buildings by occupancy. It was a big increase from what was required before. So, as owners renovate, they’ve had to add more fixtures and expand the bathrooms. So what you’re seeing is probably due to the challenges of expansion…. there may just be more space available to expand further “down the hall”.
Steve in the ATL
@Suzanne: that is an awful airport. Glad to hear that someone is improving it!
Omnes Omnibus
@am: The way I think of it is that I will work with people I disagree with who believe in democracy so that I can fight with them about other issues later.
Gloria DryGarden
@Suzanne: thanks. That makes sense. I’m not an architect, but I have been in a hurry for the bathroom.
WTFGhost
@Gloria DryGarden: Alas, sometimes, things are engineered that way, for that reason, e.g., as you say, slower queue formation = faster queue service, in most processes.
I’m hoping there’s a kind of phone-booth stall that ends up cheaper and allows full privacy, no matter your junk or your business, with family/unisex around for changing tables and the disabled.
@Ruckus: Nod. I know when I’m the smartest person in the room, but even then, I know I’m only *effectively* the smartest – the one who can solve *this* problem the best. I know someday, someone will step up, and become the smartest person in the room, and, it’s my job to make sure they are, but not to cast doubt, and to step back the moment it’s time. We all hope we’ll do it – you’re never sure until it happens, but any good leader yearns to know precisely when is the right time to hand off the baton.
@Gloria DryGarden: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, said some Vulcan somewhere – but not in a galaxy far, far, away.
@Sister Golden Bear: This is the sort of thing I meant when I made a response to the effect of “election allies versus coalition allies.” You need to understand, some election allies are going to stab you in the back, and are expecting you to do the same, because collective-you are *not* coalition allies.
If “we” want to work with evangelicals on a voter registration drive, we should assume we must deliver all registrations we collect ourselves, for they would throw some of ours out, and expect we’d do the same thing. We should only share nearly-public information, and expect they’re doing the same; etc.. If we happen to learn of a sex scandal we can use, as soon as the election is over, well, sucks to be them… but before the election, it’s tit for tat; we’ll treat you well while you treat us well.
Gvg
@Suzanne: I don’t know about trans people, but as a regular cis woman I would really like bathroom doors to fit tightly without gaps and to have working locks. They don’t need to be floor to ceiling usually, but those huge see through gaps between the door and the frame, plus latches that don’t hold give me the creeps in a restroom with just women. I have hated that since junior high at least. I would also like many of them to be a bit better lit. I assume that if they are dimly lit, they are hiding dirt.
All parents need some of the family restrooms. I found out as a foster mom, if you have a kid the other sex from you, it gets really awkward when they are above 2, and I noticed it was worse for dads.
Socolofi
So, over the past week, I made a big donation to Ukraine via the link @Watergirl had, and I’ve joined a BC wine club to help their industry. And I’ve doom scrolled a lot. I’m in one of the bluest neighborhoods of a blue district in a blue state, so not like calling my Congresswoman-for-life does anything. I’m left with a lot of doom-scrolling I can’t avoid and copium. I’m also terrified of the market; been debating doing a lot of selling but (a) never try to time the market, and (b) selling is a taxable event and I’m nervous about that, even if it’s 15% cap gains.
Overall, I’d love to be in discussions, even random bar-style spitballing, on what we can do. I have zero faith that giving money to any PAC will do anything. And I have zero idea what I can actually do past turning into some kind of prepper.
bluefoot
@Denali5: I think that’s kind of nuts. People don’t want to be in uncomfortable situations so they’re going to unperson a groups of people and say they shouldn’t exist in public or exist at all?
I get trying to find common cause with people, but I am not debating trans folks humanity nor their right to exist and live their lives as full human beings.
WTFGhost
@Harrison Wesley: Um… that sounds like a serious case of acid reflu… oh, never mind. Tough room.
Gloria DryGarden
there hasn’t been an open thread for hours. On the topic of Canada, there are some interesting pieces on BlueSky in the geography feed. Sometimes in French, but a lot of the cognates are similar to English words, and you can make it out.
yesterday I found a map of European countries, including Turkiye, that want to create an alliance in their support for Ukraine. Color coded, clear, beautiful.
today there’s a map of Syria, with details of separate areas. I wanted to post it here for Geminid. It’s my favorite place on bsky, besides jackals and you know where.
Suzanne
@Gvg:
I know. This is, like, the number-one-with-a-bullet complaint. It costs more and thus many building owners aren’t willing to do it. The ones that are willing to spend more are usually those clients who want a higher end experience for their facility.
That’s why I think it’s important to pass along feedback to places that do their bathrooms well! When owners realize that more people will come to their facility — and thus spend more money — because the bathrooms are good….. it encourages them to make those changes more places.
Ruckus
@Gloria DryGarden:
My sister was gay. My parents accepted this, I’m not sure completely but they did. At least I never saw/heard anything. And she was publicly fully accepted. She wasn’t sure she would be but I never heard a negative word.
YY_Sima Qian
@Jay: If we are talking about the echo chamber of the Rethug voters, in their reactionary extremism, detachment from reality, & expectation that reality will bend to their will by mere assertion of superiority, then the only parallels I can see are Putin’s hard core supporters, the hardest line Hindutva types for Modi, & the propagandized populations of NK. Even supporters of Xi, Erdogan & Orban, (& I assume the majority of supporters of Modi) still have expectations that are based in reality & realistic cause & effect toward material outcomes.
Gloria DryGarden
@Harrison Wesley: so sorry about your hairballs.
At least it’s not hantavirus. Which I hear is pretty terrible, somewhat like Ebola. It hasn’t come up to northern Colorado yet, but global warming…
Did anyone hear more about the thing where hackman’s phone went away from the house?
Gloria DryGarden
@Ruckus: good. Glad.
I still replay some of the junk my dad said about lesbian sex. I git thru to him for about 5 seconds, then gave up. But there were other little put downs from both of them.
Geminid .
@rikyrah: Israeli officials panned the Arab plan an hour after it was announced. Trump administration officials did likewise the next day.
Saudi-based Al Arabiya has good reporting on this matter. The Arab plan includes a framework for governing Gaza moving forward. As some of the experts interviewed by Al Jazeera explain, it’s the only practical.plan for resolving this war. The Israelis and Trump’s people didn’t reject it because they have something better; they rejected it because they’re stupid.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Steve LaBonne: the Popper paradox
WaterGirl
@Sister Golden Bear: I appreciate your reply.
Socolofi
Also a big of a thread-jack, and taking out my CA passport and appropriate creds…
I am 0% worried about Canada joining the US by any means, ever.
Even if Trudeau said, “Hey Donny-boy, we’re in! And we don’t have to vote for it here!” (which is a lie, and we would have to, and I suspect King Charles and likely the British Parliament would have to approve as well because we still haven’t fully cut the cord), the US Congress would have to approve it. It’d probably just be a simple act similar to how the Republic of Texas was admitted, but they’d still need to approve it. At that point, here’s where a lot of GOP folks realize what would happen:
– 40 million people across 10 provinces, 9 of which have more people than Wyoming, and 3 territories join. So you’ll have a large argument around how many states join, but would well be 10. It wouldn’t be 1.
– Even if the GOP thought that maybe Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan would be Republicans, they’d look at Trump-lite Ford and think that for about a decade or so, all of Canada will vote Democratic, so there’s ~20 new Democratic Senators and some 50 new reps (maybe some are GOP, but the majority Dem).
– Oh, and then those 50-ish reps get pulled from the rest of the states… so each state loses roughly 10% of its representation. That’s a huge shift, and even in gerrymandered states, that’s gonna hard to just pin to Democrats.
So given that a lot of GOP types would suddenly find their ability to cling to power gone, they don’t do this. Granted, they probably aren’t super vocal about it, so they slow-walk it… committees to figure out how many states, how to integrate the two economies, how to make sure too many of the industries in their districts aren’t super negatively impacted, etc etc. They run out the clock.
That being said, I am completely convinced that Trump wants to humiliate Trudeau, and takes great pleasure in hurting others, including Canada. So that’s why I’m so mad here – it isn’t about looking to get some particular policy win, it’s just pure hate for hate’s sake.
Omnes Omnibus
@Pussreboots: This is a perfectly rational response to a crisis.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus:
I guess I must have lost my head for a minute. What was I thinking?!
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: I’ve been tolerated. A former friend told me she tolerated someone difficult, then said she tolerated me, always would. It was not a heartwarming feeling. Sort of Damning with faint praise.
It’s a word that cuts both ways for me, I’ll read your article; thanks.
Gretchen
@WaterGirl: The Kansas City airport has had gender-neutral bathrooms for a couple of years without incident. Conservative blogs try to stir up outrage periodically, but people here don’t care. The stalls and doors go all the way to the floor, with red/green lights to indicate which are occupied, and shared sinks. There are also single occupancy and single sex for those who don’t want the gender neutral, but they’re nicer than most airports in that they’re clean and there’s no waiting.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gloria DryGarden: ::must not comment. Stress. Stress! Arrggh!::
WaterGirl
@Socolofi: Right now I think it’s a really good investment to donate to the Wisconsin Dems (one of only two state parties I would give money to) in their fight to keep the Rs from taking back their state supreme court. Election is April 1.
From my post just before this one.
Ben Wikler and the Wisconsin Dems are taking the fight to Trump and Musk. I like what I’m seeing. He should have been the DNC Chair, dammit. Let’s not turn back the clock in Wisconsin.
Gloria DryGarden
From 2 days ago:
Tweets swarm as locusts
Venomous lies coil and hiss
Twisted, people lose.
_____
by Deep Seek AI, YY, and Gloria
Gretchen
@Tenar Arha: Some commentary on that story asked how that young woman could have been stupid enough to believe that voting for Trump would give her free IVF? Then they printed all the headlines from NYT, WaPo, and other big papers saying “Trump proposes free IVF” without any context that it was a lie or that he wouldn’t have the power to do that. Why would she be stupid enough to believe all the media professionals who presumably knew better than she did what was possible? Maybe people believe dumb things because nobody tells them differently.
Gloria DryGarden
@Omnes Omnibus: thank you, I appreciate your firebearance.
( forebearance. But what an interesting typo)
We’re all barely tolerating the national and international situations.
If I thought it wouldn’t cross your line, I’d wish you well in a self- care kind of way.
But the stress has been over the top, yes. And then there’s the personal life stress. It’s a rough combo.
meanwhile your comment #178 is genius. I should nominate it:
Gretchen
@Suzanne: That’s one of the arguments for diversity in hiring engineers, architects and so on – you all think of these things. My husband was annoyed that our car automatically unlocks all the doors if you touch the passenger side handle, but only the driver’s door if you touch the driver’s door. Why this stupid, inconvenient arrangement, he asked? Because a female automotive engineer has sprinted away from a scary man in a parking lot and didn’t want him able to climb into her passenger side when she unlocked her car.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Gretchen: She lived in a very red area. She voted for Biden in 2020 so she was capable of thinking for herself. She desperately wants a baby, has endometriosis and a large student debt burden. She worked for the national park service and got a masters to get her dream job there. She wanted to work where she grew up, saving and helping the natural world she loves survive.
Mr. Trump said IVF would be free and she desperately wanted that to be true. She decided to vote for him inside the voting booth. DOGE fired her for “bad performance” (lying all the day long)
I feel for her and sincerely wish the leopards had left her alone.
Suzanne
@Gretchen: Agreed.
I remember, when I was young and living with Ex-Mr.-Suzanne, I would always tell him where I was going, even if it was just to take out the trash or something. One day, he turned to me and asked, “Why do you always tell me where you’re going?”. I responded, “So you can watch for me if I’m gone longer than I should be because I was attacked”. He was gobsmacked.
I read a lot of ADA forums to learn ways to make designs better. One thing I learned was that wheelchair users don’t like touching their chairs with wet hands and prefer the paper towels to be by the sink. Other people hate that because it makes others crowd the sinks and then some people are slobby and leave paper towels all over the place.
Gretchen
@sab: That’s why I find it even weirder that people are worked up about trans issues, when I’m pretty sure it’s not an issue they’ve encountered in real life. There’s a friend of a Facebook friend who’s always posting about trans athletes. I said I know for a fact that there are only 3 trans high school athletes competing in your entire state, and I’m pretty sure you don’t know any of them or anyone on teams competing with them. Why is this your primary issue? She doesn’t answer, just goes back to her talking points. She’s just mad about what her media tells her to be mad about, even if it doesn’t make sense.
Argiope
@Suzanne: late to the thread as always but old town Quebec City public restrooms are all-gender with a big sink in the middle where everyone washes up. I’m on team I Don’t Care About Your Junk Just Wash Your Hands. I used co-ed dorm bathrooms daily in the late 80s and have no regrets. Multi-gender bathrooms are not new and I’d like to see more of them.
Gretchen
@Suzanne: one thing people don’t think about re: gender neutral bathrooms, especially in an airport, is moms travelling with little boys and dads with little girls who don’t want to send them into a bathroom by themselves. Same with adults traveling with opposite sex adults who need bathroom assistance. So much nicer to have adjacent stalls and shared bathrooms so you don’t have to worry what your 6 year old will encounter in the bathroom by themself.
Gretchen
@Gloria DryGarden: That’s a good question! And if the answer is that women’s bathrooms need more hall for longer, slower lines, the Kansas City airport gender-neutral bathrooms solved that problem by rarely having any lines. Extra-good when you’re worried about getting to your gate before boarding.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: When we remodeled the bar, the #1 comment we got was how much better the bathrooms were. We went from campground-like bathrooms to nice bathrooms and everyone was appreciative.
Suzanne
@Gretchen: I personally think about that a lot, since Mr. Suzanne doesn’t love taking the Spawns into the men’s room.
@Argiope: I don’t mind them, either, but public opinion is a thing. I will say that every client I’ve had in the last ten years or so has at least considered the option, and most have added some single-user restrooms for comfort.
Geminid .
@CCL: This exchange made me think of producing a Calvin and Hobbes podcast. I would have to line up a couple spiritual mediums to channel John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes, but if I could pull that off the show might be a banger. The two men were contemporaries, and I bet they’d have a lot to say about current events.
@HopefullyNotcassandra:
Tenar Arha
@Gretchen: Yep. Yet she both had all her experiences of watching Trump during COVID and the research skills to debunk that statement, I think she just needed an excuse in the voting booth.
Yes, you’re right, that doesn’t work when headlines lie to you too. But she should know that too from graduate school. I twisted myself in knots all week trying to understand. I know I kinda don’t want to despise her, but I do. While I can guess exactly her situation at home with her MAGA family & partner probably saying all sorts of bull all around her, convincing her she didn’t need to double check. Again, she has free will, she made her choices. She had made all her plans to build a family in her hometown. She knew what she wanted. I also wish I didn’t understand her. This was 100% the choices she made. Anyway I really have to stop. I’m looping again about this, and I apologize for inflicting it on you.
ETA I wish she had focused on what she would do in the next election. But there’s no indication of that in the profile, & the blowback will be nasty, and she’ll probably just feel sorry for herself & dig in.
Timill
@Geminid .: Hmm. Calvin d.1564. Hobbes b.1588
Jeffro
@Hoodie: right?
“My dog just barked something that sounded like the intro to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’…no really! Let’s keep listening…”
Pussreboots
@Omnes Omnibus: We also happen to live near some local hot sauce companies (like Lucky Dog which was featured on Hot Ones a few years back). So there’s always some new flavor to try.
wil
IMHO, I think the trans-bathroom thing is mainly politics ginned up by conservatives to get their bigoted base all ‘wee-weed up’ and to the polls.
Outside of conservatives, I don’t think anyone gives a crap about bathrooms. I mean, you pay attention to your own thing in bathrooms, if you are peeking around at other people that’s on you for being a creep, not on them.
But when it comes to SPORTS, I see how people who are just fine with transgendered people everywhere else having a legitimate issue in not wanting kids who were born female to lose out in competitions because they are competing against those who were born male and are just larger and stronger.
I have yet to see a good position being taken by ‘the left’ on this.
CCL
@Geminid .: way late and you probably won’t see this…but TULIP vs Beasties,…yup, would be a banger !
wil
Is there a place on the left for those who are entirely pro-transgender but ALSO think it’s not fair to born-female girls and women to have to compete against them in sports?
My previous comment seems to have been not allowed, so here is the shorter version.
wil
Apparently there is no answer to the question of trans-women in sports.
I am not even allowed to bring up the subject here.
Sad.
Geminid .
@Timill: Thank you for the correction. I should have known better. I saw the dates for Calvin’s life and death and already knew he was a younger contemporary of Martin Luther. Then I misread Hobbes’s. But I should have remembered that Hobbes was born in 1588 because he said his mother birthed him while the English navy fought the Spanish Armada offshore.
It still would be a good podcast if the technical problems could be overcome. But maybe not a banger.
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: I want the doors to the stalls to always open outwards, as it’s difficult to maneuver around inside most women’s bathroom stalls (barely enough room to access the actual toilet because of the paper dispenser, the small trash receptacle for menstrual products, purse/coat hook). This is why I always use the disabled stall whenever possible. Most architects appear to be single men who never carry anything around with them, much less have children in tow, wear a full-length coat or a skirt, etc.
wil
@Kayla Rudbek: Men, single or not, would also prefer to have stall doors that open outward. I also use the stall meant for wheelchairs. I think the intent, though, is not to inconvenience women, but rather to avoid people accidentally opening doors into other people in the bathroom and causing incidents / misunderstandings / fights, etc.
Wil
@Kayla Rudbek: It’s as difficult to maneuver in single stalls in men’s rooms. I also use the larger stalls meant for wheelchairs because of this. Likely the doors don’t open outwards because it would cause incidents of people opening doors into other people they can’t see from inside the stalls.
WaterGirl
@wil: @wil: @wil:
In business and finance, there is a concept of materiality that is relevant to this conversation.
Let’s say a business is audited and the auditors do not find a perfect set of books. (Narrator: there is no perfect set of books.)
When a discrepancy is found, the key question is the materiality of what is found. How big is the difference, and would it be big enough to have a reasonable impact on decision-making? If it’s insignificant or irrelevant, it is said to be immaterial.
I would posit that the attention the “issue” of Trans girls in sports gets is totally out of proportion. It’s not a material problem; it’s a manufactured one. I don’t recall which state, but I think I read that there’s actually something like 1 Trans girl in high school sports in an entire state where it’s actually a real issue.
Do we have actual laws against bullying in school? Where I am pretty sure that the actual number is appallingly high? And most definitely material? No there are not.
Bullying is a problem without a solution. No trans girls in sports is a solution without a problem.
“Trans girls playing sports in school isn’t fair to all the other girls” primarily serves as cover for people who are uncomfortable with people who are Trans in any space.
That’s why the “concern” about Trans girls in sports that is expressed in this space engenders the reaction that it does.
Because it looks like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And quite likely is.
Wil
@WaterGirl:
Very well, but that is also a way to avoid answering my question. Whether it is an issue in one school/state or more than one, and whether it is exaggerated by conservatives or not, it is still an issue, and I know more than one person who is otherwise on ‘the left’ who nevertheless thinks people born male competing against those born female in women’s sports is unfair and wrong.
I still have not heard any kind of rational position acknowledging this position other than being told to shut up by people on my ‘tolerant’ side.
WaterGirl
@Wil:
I will try to be more clear because it appears you didn’t take in what I said the first time.
“Trans girls in sports is hurtful to the other girls” (actually hurtful to a very small # of girls)
Bullying is a huge problem in schools (last figure I saw was 20% of kids bullied in school)
A whole lot of things related to kids are unfair and wrong. You care about kids.
Maybe you could think about why Trans girls playing sports, that affects a very small number of girls, is the one you care so much about.
That’s why the “concern” about Trans girls in sports that is expressed in this space engenders the reaction that it does.
Because it looks like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And quite likely is.
Wil
@WaterGirl: Actually I don’t give a crap about kids. I don’t have any and I don’t like them.
But I do care about beating Republiklans, and to date they are beating us on this issue, and whether you call it manufactured or not, it is still an issue.
And yet again you avoided coming up with any kind of rational way to handle it. (not trying to be snotty here, but you avoided it again)
The trans issue in general is pretty small in the grand scope of things, yet one reason we lost in 2024 is the Trump people clobbered us on it…crushed us would be more apt…on silly things like Harris supporting tax dollars used for gender surgery in prisons….talk about a small sample size…what, maybe one or two people in the entire country got that surgery in a prison at taxpayer expense?
So please, instead of explaining why I shouldn’t bother with this issue, tell me what the solution is. Seeing unfairness in larger, stronger bodies winning championships in women’s sports is not some kind of anti-trans bigotry. It’s a real issue, whether it is small in numbers or large in political power.
I am pretty moderate on this stuff….I don’t really give a shit about women’s sports (or most sports at all). To my mind most sports leagues have their own governing bodies and they can all make their own policies as they see fit.
But I have a friend for whom this is a big deal, for whatever reason, and I would like to provide him a rational answer.
WaterGirl
@Wil: So kids don’t really matter to you – Trans kids or otherwise – but your friend does?
You want to provide your friend a rational answer.
What is the exact question your friend is asking?
Wil
@WaterGirl: Yes, there are people who don’t like kids, and we do have friends that we do care about..
Is that some kind of big revelation for you?
In my original post on this topic I wrote:
My question would be what is the ‘rational’ position that acknowledges that those who see the unfairness in this situation have a point, and are not simply anti-trans bigots?
So far you just seem to want to insult me rather than address anything honestly.
Or you want to say I shouldn’t be interested in this issue but rather should be caring about bullying/trafficking/foster care or whatever. Basically avoiding the issue.
WaterGirl
@Wil:
Please quote anywhere in this exchange where I have insulted you.
And I didn’t say you shouldn’t care about this and should instead care about the other issues I mentioned.
I was simply asking you think look at yourself and think about why this particular issue – that really appears to be a non-issue from where I sit – should bother you so much.
But I will say one more thing. So the question your friend has is this?
“What is the ‘rational’ position that acknowledges that those who see the unfairness in this situation have a point, and are not simply anti-trans bigots?”
Your friend appears to be asking for acknowledgement that they are not simply anti-trans bigots but instead are simply fair-minded people who think that allowing Trans girls to play sports is unfair to the other girls.
You won’t get that reassurance from me.
Wil
@WaterGirl: I never said it bothered me. That’s you saying that. Implying that people who don’t like kids somehow don’t care about their friends is insulting, but whatever. Or that there’s something wrong with people who don’t like or care about kids. Beside the point.
Not only does it not bother me…I think it would be HILARIOUS if every major trophy and tournament in women’s sports was won by women who were born men.
I would be laughing my ass off. I hate Republiklans more than anything, but I also hate it when those on my own side get too far over their skis on an issue and hand Republiklans a big hammer to beat us with. And that’s what has happened here.
I’m sorry you refuse to simply address the issue. If it were truly such a small thing, it would be easy for you to give me an answer.
Calling people anti-trans bigots for thinking this is an issue is not the answer. Apparently that’s all you’ve got, though.
Wil
@WaterGirl:
Nope. He wouldn’t give a shit and a half what you think of him or care about your acknowledgement of anything.
The fact is that there ARE fair-minded people, who are not anti-trans bigots, who vote for Democrats, who ALSO think that it’s unfair that people who were born male are allowed to compete against people who were born female and take the top spots in their sports.
Perhaps that is something that you ought to look at yourself and think about.
As I said, I would think it totally awesome if women-who-were-once-men took all those trophies away from women. It would be the biggest own goal in history, and just really damn funny.
But for my friend, I just wanted some kind of acknowledgment that there is something other than “my way or the highway” here…something other than “you agree with us or you are a bigot!!!”
I guess not. And you wonder why the Republiklans are winning.
WaterGirl
@Wil:
The world is not black and white. There are positions in the Democratic Party that I don’t agree with , and others that I don’t think are perfect.
I’m pretty sure every engaged Democrat could make that statement.
Democrats are a big tent party, and the means we don’t all agree on everything.
I don’t need anyone to pat me on the head and tell me they think I’m right about any particular thing I think should be handled differently. I don’t need anyone to tell me that it’s okay to think the way I do.
Again I will ask – why is this your hobby horse? Why is this thing you continue to focus on in your comments.
This is your hill to die on?
Wil
@WaterGirl:
Not my hobby horse. Just something to ask questions about. I’ve the same right to have opinions on it that you do. There is no real point in asking questions about things everybody generally agrees on.
I ask because it is a political problem the Democratic party has, and I’d like for the party to get past it, and calling everyone who disagrees an anti-trans bigot just ensures that we will not get past it, and continue to alienate people who are otherwise our allies.
You don’t want to hear this, and that’s okay. You just want to label people as anti-trans who are not actually anti-trans.
That’s too bad.
WaterGirl
I didn’t call you or anyone else “anti-Trans” in this exchange.
What I DID say is that someone who is opposed to Trans girls playing in girls sports won’t get any reassurance from me that they are not anti-Trans.
I also DID say this:
That’s why the “concern” about Trans girls in sports that is expressed in this space engenders the reaction that it does.
Because it looks like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And quite likely is.
“Quite likely” is the key there. I’m not calling any particular person anything with that statement, including you or your friend.
I will say that for someone who says he doesn’t care that much about this issue – you have spent an inordinate amount of time pushing your message forward.
“just something to ask questions about”.
Sure, Jan. And with that, I’m done wasting my time trying to have an honest conversation with you.
Wil
@WaterGirl:
Sure, Jan, you aren’t calling anyone anti-trans. It’s just “quite likely” that you are.
Well, you “won’t get any reassurance from me” that you aren’t doing that.
Sorry if it bothers you that I can talk about things in longer forms than tweets.
As always on this site, differences of opinion are roundly attacked by the regulars who enforce the rigid allowed viewpoints.
It’s too bad. Really makes the site less than it could be.
Have a good day.
chemiclord
If there was any evidence that being born male gave a particularly significant advantage once a transwoman properly transitioned, then I’d accept being squeamish about it. But the evidence really hasn’t borne that out. It appears to be a marginal benefit at best, and well within the standard deviation of women.
I know a lot of anti-transwomen in sports advocates like to bring up Lia Thomas; but the very simple answer is that Lia won ONE single, solitary event in what had been a rather down year as a whole, and was rather entirely unexceptional in every other event she competed in. In fact, her winning time would have only been the winning time in two other years within the last decade.
https://www.newsweek.com/lia-thomas-winning-not-swimming-that-fast-data-transgender-1691874
I dunno, it seems like it wouldn’t be worth the effort for male athletes to transition solely for the sake of competition. As much as it makes people uncomfortable to think that all that really separates peak male and peak female performance is a handful of hormones in fairly specific ratios, that truly does seem to be the case.
In summary, “Juwanna Mann” is a comedy, not a documentary.