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Nicki M.'s avatar

Yes, you are absolutely right. It needs a 'clear' legally handed down solution with accompanying interpretation and guidance.

However, I personally think that this embedded ideology absolutely requires a 2-pronged approach, if not a 3, 4 & 5 pronged approach.

Women refusing to participate in sports against any man/men had the effect of letting everyone know that that political 'act of protest' signified that they were no longer willing to be passive by-standers in the demise of their exclusive women's sports category.

It let men who chose to identify as women, even though they are and always will be biological men no-matter how they present, know that women are not going to be used as the backdrop props to validate their distorted perceptions of themselves as 'women'.

It let those same men, and everyone else know including the sports organisations and administration, that sports women are not going to expend their time and energy in participating in an event where they were unable to compete. There was no competition. A man had an unfair advantage and was going to win and that women's sports can't operate without the participation of women.

Trans identified men do not want to compete amongst themselves because there is no validation in that. Participating in sports is not the priority for Trans identified men. Being validated as a woman is and that requires being amongst actual women.

Sports bodies, administrators and regulators have literally made sports women become mere environmental props needed to allow a less than mediocre sports men, who claim to identify as women, to automatically walk off with 'the prize' whilst getting narcissistic validation and attention ie supply, something they couldn't achieve in men's sport.

In my humble view, women not participating nor enabling in their own demise, in practice, is the best example of 'actions speak louder than words'. The power remains with sports women so long as they stick together as a united force and voice, in the face of all attacks.

Those women that participated in the beauty pageant where a trans identified man won, after having had every 'extreme' surgical procedure possible done, including facial feminisation surgery(FFS), were just narcissistic props on the day. Had they refused to participate, a male could never have won and walked off with a woman's crown that was supposed to represent a woman's beauty.

Women in sports have been forced to protest because the law as it stood was actually not protecting them, in practice.

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Hazel-rah's avatar

Complaining about it is fine, but the next healthy step is talking about what we need to do about it.

Otherwise, you're just another woman who will endlessly complain but who won't sue and so can be safely ignored.

Men are good at being aggressive. Women are not. You're at a disadvantage, but fuck it, go kick some ass, and don't worry about the worst-case scenarios, don't worry about with the liberals think, stay focused on the prize!

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Glenna Goldis's avatar

Most federal judges in New England are liberals, that's why I advised finding a firm with liberal cred

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Kyle Reese's avatar

girls who boycott these competitions are heros. of course not everyone can be a hero.

when there is a crime thats being committed, its often a random stranger who steps in to rescue the baby, stick their foot out to trip a thief or simply call 911 to report a crime. i guess we could all sit around and say "we shouldnt have to rescue babys from buring buildings, thats the fire dept's job". lets contact an attorney for this.

yes, lets contact attorneys. but first lets boycott these events. girls who do so are saving sports for others. after all, when to police or fire dept arrive too late, theres often nothing left to save

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Sarah Barker's avatar

You put it well, as have others who've commented here. And I agree, a concerted effort is probably best—a boycott by the athletes (works better in, say, volleyball where there are fewer players to rally than a cross country meet that might have 400 runners) for immediate effect; parents talking to school boards in the mid-term; and lobbying or legal action as the long game. I just get all riled up about putting all the responsibility for this mess on the shoulders of teenage girls

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Nicki M.'s avatar

I know exactly what you mean. You're right to be riled up. For a 101 reasons. Girls shouldn't have that responsibility. However, the girls that take a stand have certain qualities and characteristics that make them SJ warriors and more resilient than most. And their protests are paying off by 'immediately' and practically changing policies that exclude biological boys/men from the girl's/women's categories, short circuiting legal intervention, costs and delays in legal outcomes and setting societal precedents:

Women are walking away

https://youtu.be/HDz2o6Ynn7Q?si=_udRTMXK3mBb5pjv

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Kyle Reese's avatar

i agree with you. our instinct is to protect kids. gender ideology harms women, kids, gays, ppl with pysch issues, orphans and others. often gender critical views are via the prism of which group one is most aware is being harmed.

i try to shield my boys from this mess as much as possible.

but in order to shield them i am forced to tell them honestly what is happening. when my child reported to me that there are three genders, something he saw on a form for an after school program i told him no there arent - that adults are lying to kids due to a religious belief.

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Nicki M.'s avatar

'girls who boycott these competitions are heros. of course not everyone can be a hero.'

Absolutely. They are truly courageous heroes! Willing to take a stand in the face of adversity.

And the point is, it gets the ball rolling, to highlight the issue and really primes the ground for a legal challenge if things are not resolved before that event. Bearing in mind that litigation is supposed to be the action of last resort, not first resort.

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Kat Highsmith's avatar

Sex exists.

"Gender identity" does not.

Any law that seeks to protect a delusion (a male who "feels like" he's female) will ultimately fail because a society that tries to run on lies will collapse.

That is the only approach that works because it is true. Everything else will fail.

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MarkS's avatar

I am a lifelong liberal Democrat (age 68), and I am thrilled that the Alliance Defending Freedom is indeed defending the rights of women and girls. So please stop with the litmus tests for some sort of liberal purity. It's worthless.

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Glenna Goldis's avatar

New England judges tend to be liberal. So ideally, firms with liberal cred would argue these cases. I respect many of the conservative lawyers in this space (but not ADF).

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MarkS's avatar

Do you have any evidence that liberal firms get better results? I read the evidence as saying that "liberal" judges are essentially impervious to any argument from anyone that pushes back against their transhumanist ideological beliefs. (This is true of "liberals" generally, including 99.9% of Democrats holding office). So I'd rather have a strong case on the record being argued by lawyers who believe in it, rather than by lawyers who are constantly going to be questioned and undermined by their own staffs.

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Tom Ruen's avatar

I agree girls protesting is as much tilting at windmills, against a discriminatory policy. It becomes a mere self sacrificing strategy that may be ignored, and only you lose out.

The only real power is protests can embarrass event organizers and embarrassment is a powerful force. Embarrassed organizations and individuals often overstep and shoot the messenger and try to punish the protestors, and that’s where publicity can explode.

But the goal isn’t to “protest newly female Soren”, but to protest policy, so whether a Soren is there or not, collective action is available. So there is no secret directives minutes before a race. There is a plan. A whole team can stand at the start line long enough to be fully separated from the mass start.

Then people see a whole team colored uniforms in solidarity running together at a training pace, chatting, laughing and showing the world that winning isn’t their goal, just fairness.

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Sarah Barker's avatar

I know you're no stranger to protests, but I think even what you propose here would be a hard sell. And for many of the girls, winning is their goal

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Tom Ruen's avatar

It definitely sucks to have to abandon your goals because of bad rules, and no one should feel compelled. But it is a critical mass issue. If 100% protested it would be over more quickly, while even 10% would be visually powerful.

War in Ukraine and Israel with homicidal neighbors sucks too. It surprises me that anyone fights on rather that just retreating out of harm’s way.

Human tribalism produces our worst blindnesses but also can invoke our best as well if we have integrity and good reasoned boundaries we can defend.

“We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” - Benjamin Franklin

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