[lelanthran]

> In my state, we removed protections for housing and employment discrimination against trans people because... one trans athlete existed?

I think you're sort of proving the parent's point - when you're in an existential fight, is it really that important that you use the limited attention of the public to fight for the rights of a single person?

Trans rights ain't even that popular; most people are okay with "you think you're someone else? Well, fine, no skin off my nose". OTOH, the majority of people globally aren't okay with "It must be a crime if you don't treat me as a member of the opposite sex".

The identity politics, of all forms, sucked out much of the air from the room leaving precious little left for discussing things like climate change.

Whether we like it or not, human attention is a limited resource. If you're going to allow a few vocal nutters to direct the course of your discussion, then you can't very well complain, now can you?

I mean, that's what leaders are supposed to do - direct the discussion. When the opposition says "They want to let men into women's changing rooms", then you say "No, we don't support that at all".

I mean, voters find some things distasteful - you have to choose which of those things you are going to argue for, and which you are going to back down from.

Diluting your message so that you mention a little bit of everything is just dumb politics, because human attention is a limited resource!

[empyrrhicist]

I made my position clear in other comments, so I'll leave it at that. I do not find your arguments persuasive.

[Planktonne]

> when you're in an existential fight, is it really that important that you use the limited attention of the public to fight for the rights of a single person?

Yes. That's what rights are. If we don't support them for one person, we don't have them for any person.

[lelanthran]

> Yes. That's what rights are. If we don't support them for one person, we don't have them for any person.

That's not the question that was asked. The question is whether it is wise to dilute your message when the message is warning of existential threat?

The binary question of fighting for a rights was never contended. The question was weighting that specific right against an existential threat.

There's more nuance here than you're willing to admit (hence the resounding loss of the left).

[watwut]

> I think you're sort of proving the parent's point - when you're in an existential fight, is it really that important that you use the limited attention of the public to fight for the rights of a single person?

Literally conservatives did that. THEY made this focus of the debate. Democrats reaction do not even matter here. It is ultimately irrelevant, because people like you then obsess over imaginary democrats positions democratic party never really had.

[lelanthran]

> Democrats reaction do not even matter here.

It does indeed matter - they were the ones who were insufficiently convinced of their nominees messages. Not convinced enough to vote for them, at any rate.

The opposition does not matter when your "supporters" don't vote for you because the message they received is different from the message you think you transmitted.

[Jensson]

Conservatives focus on the points that splinters the liberals, and vice versa the liberals try to focus on points that splinters the conservatives. Liberals are very split on the trans issue, so it makes sense to focus on that.

It was a bad move to put themselves in such a position that they can't defend when conservatives attacks it, that was moving too fast and therefore we ended up with a conservative government.

You can say it was conservative that is to blame since they used this vulnerability of the liberals position, but you can also say that it was the liberals fault for doing things that is unpopular with a large part of their supporters so they are now in a vulnerable spot.

[watwut]

> Conservatives focus on the points that splinters the liberals, and vice versa the liberals try to focus on points that splinters the conservatives. Liberals are very split on the trans issue, so it makes sense to focus on that.

Not true. Conservatives are creating this point, because it makes their base afraid and more radical. It has nothing to do with what liberals do or don't do. It is not about splintering liberals, it is about creating a weak enemy so you can beat him. Liberals have two choices: join trans hate and gain no votes or do not join trans hate.

> it was conservative that is to blame since they used this vulnerability

I think conservatives are to blame, because they picked someone weak to bully him and use as political cudgel. Also because they lie.

> liberals fault for doing things that is unpopular

Except that it did not happened. There was no comparable democratic pro-trans campaign. You are just doing that funny thing where if there is a single person opposed to conservative agenda, then conservatives are absolved of everything.

> we ended up with a conservative government.

Conservative movement becoming fascists personality cult is the issue. In an alternative universe, there could have been pro-democratic lawful conservative government. Conservative did not had to imply what it does today. And conservative movement turning into what it is now is fully fault of conservatives.

[array_key_first]

> "It must be a crime if you don't treat me as a member of the opposite sex".

This is a thing that basically does not exist. This is, again, more right-wing culture war bullshit that was cooked up in a meth lab. It's not real.

Can you get fired if you purposefully antagonize your boss at work? Yes. That's always been the case. Guess what, if I call my boss a jackass I'm probably getting shown the door, and that's not even a pronoun.

Can you get in trouble for discriminating based on gender and sexual orientation? Yes, and that's been the case for a while.

Nobody is getting into legal trouble because they don't personally believe trans women aren't "real" women, whatever "real" might mean to them. Nobody, not a soul. It's just a non-issue.

What's going on is there is a set of people who are basically just doing nothing who are under constant new and innovative threats from the right. And, when they say, "hey, don't do that", we somehow have the gall to point at them and yell "Culture war! Culture war!"

It's not that people's goodwill is being burnt on trans people. It's that the right has been playing to the populist messaging they have in order to continue their crusade.

While the economy is burning down, and the climate is worsening, and we are entering wars, they are trying to convince you the problem is some set of people who are doing nothing. And, that the solution is simple: beat down this set of people.

This includes immigrants, trans people, gay people. Of course, it's just not true. But humans are stupid. We're already pre-wired to be uneasy around people we don't understand who are different from us, especially visibly different. And, humans understand and have high confidence in simple solutions.

I mean, God, look at the border wall. Will that work? Did that work? Of course not. But it's such a simple, almost child-like understanding of the problem that people had very high confidence in it.

[Jensson]

> What's going on is there is a set of people who are basically just doing nothing who are under constant new and innovative threats from the right

Trans people haven't done nothing, there are many reforms that have moved the trans issue a lot that were pushed by trans people, that is not nothing. The right isn't innovating anything by rolling back those, they are just being conservative which is in their name.

You could argue those reforms are good, but you can't argue it is the right that is changing things here, the right just undo change they don't do the changing on these issues.

And you can't fault the right for trying to win the election. You have to try to win the election as well, throwing it away by sticking to unpopular policies such as trans in sports is just ignorant. It isn't just the right that doesn't want trans in sports, it is a large majority of the entire population that doesn't want that.