I feel like a lot of people on the left over learned the lessons from the gay marriage legalization activism. That started to pick up when gay marriage was still very unpopular and the left successfully (at least in their mind) moralized their way into getting people believe in legalization and public opinion reversed very quickly. However, stating the obvious, a gay couple getting married has no effect on a straight couple’s marriage but trans athletes have an obvious effect on those competing against them in a sport.
In a way, the modern left is the mirror image of the right with social conservatism. Both social conservatives and the modern left believe what they believe for moral reasons and don’t always think in practical terms. Social conservatives advocated against abortion on moralistic grounds and didn’t particularly care about nationwide popularity of their views. They viewed their cause as just and public opinion was irrelevant because they were right in their minds. The left has this mindset on many of their policy views and they view excluding trans women from any activity as immoral.
A bit off topic, but to speak to your second graf: the moral reasons of social conservatives are bounded by a God that only a minority of humans believe in; the moral reasons of the left (stereotypically speaking) are bounded by human life and experience, which belief is one factor, and this includes 100% of humans (which is far larger than a minority).
While everyone is blinkered by human limitations and mistakes, and the inability to see around moral corners, etc. etc., I'd say there is an enormous difference in the two moral frameworks you cite.
Where this leaves conflicted lefties like me is, the trans athlete herself, in this case, almost certainly does not see her denial of rights in this one venue-- for political expediency-- as okay. And while I want to win elections as I'm pretty "our side" is better for trans rights, to do so this way is nevertheless denying someone full rights (which would be immoral in this construct, yes). Which is insanity from a political POV, I get.
You're not denying trans athletes their rights anymore than you're denying a 250-lb wrestler the right to wrestle in the 150-lb weight class. They still have the right to play high school sports.
In what scenario? The open v. specific competition? In any case, you are not trans, I assume? Nor am I. What does a trans person say? Or are you not interested in the agency of the class of people in question?
What do you mean "what scenario"? They can try out for and play men's sports.
And I do have some experience not getting to play the sports I want in high school. I loved baseball but had the misfortune of not being that good and my high school having the best baseball team in the state at the time with several players eventually playing in college and the 2 that would actually play in the MLB. I wasn't able to make the cut for JV, let alone varsity.
It sucked but I didn't try to claim my rights were being violated or that I was somehow being discriminated against. I simply continued playing for the local community league, which in some ways was more fun because it was less competitive.
Ah, no, I was referring to the scenario Josh was talking about, or the one a commenter mentioned, if you have an open competition (all competitors who qualify based on speed, etc.) or specific (biological males).
I believe girls have been playing baseball with boys and even, occasionally, football (Sophie Cunningham from Fever is a notable example) with boys for a few decades now. So it's nothing new for a biological girl to play with a biological boy. We are talking about trans people, and gender is the term, not biology.
So the conversation is about what are the terms we offer people to try out for teams. You could no more try out for your high school baseball team NOW than I could have back in the day as an enrollee of a different high school. There were agreed upon criteria, probably certain age and attend the school, as basic as that. So what are the criteria for a given sport? biological female? gendered female? weight classes for wrestling?
It's obvious to wrestlers, coaches, wrestling authorities to design the competions based on weight (and NOT sex or gender, as I know high school girls have competed in high school wrestling). so we are talking about the terms, it's why josh wrote the article. it's why, presumably, you and I are responding in comments.
Just because a boy came out as trans, and even started HRT, does not make that boy a girl. That boy will be "trans girl", a compound noun to describe a certain class of boys who have transitioned. A female category was created out of an understanding that men and women are biologically different from one another and it does not make sense for them to compete in the same category, not even in Chess! Trans identified male athletes may be biologically different from other males, but they are also different biologically from females; on that basis alone they cannot be allowed to compete in the female category. The mistake you're making is that you think trans could arguably belong to either categories, but female category is the one with restriction on who can qualify, male category is the default/open one.
"Gender identity" is mostly fake too though. When elder millennials were teenagers, there was a condition called "gender identity disorder" with 1-in-10k prevalence. Since then, there's been a two order-of-magnitude increase in people deciding to be trans, concentrated among the population that would have joined the literary magazine and/or developed an eating disorder in our youth.
The true normal/centrist take is that you should be allowed to move to the big city and pretend to be the opposite sex if you want, but that normal people shouldn't really have to play along.
I’m essentially counting out the Maine oyster farmer and James Talerico because of their stances on trans issues. I think Dems are going to continue to learn this the hard way.
Yeah it's bizarre to me that the guy who's supposed to help us reconnect with culturally conservative voters in Texas has been on the 15 side of this 66-15 issue, and is now just giving word salad about it.
Walz was going to help Kamala win because he was a football coach who liked hunting so he could relate to all the white dudes in Wisconsin and Michigan and win them over without having to compromise on any issue. Likewise, Platner is a manly oyster farmer and Marine and Talarico is a nice Jesus-loving Christian boy and will surely deliver Senate Democrats Texas and Maine just as effectively as Walz delivered Michigan and Wisconsin to Kamala.
It's pretty sad this is even a debate because the evidence is so overwhelmingly against the trans position. Their arguments are ludicrous and essentially rest on vibes.
A better way to phrase this is that there are “open”sports competitions where anyone can participate and specialized competitions with eligibility factors such as age or sex. For example, instead of men’s and women’s categories, the Olympics would designate categories as either “open” or for “cis-women”. In that way, trans women are not men, they are trans women and can compete in the open competition. That also wouldn’t rule out having a “trans women” category.
I certainly agree on the need to not have purity on this issue and many others related to it. I don’t think there should be a federal response to this issue though. The best way to get to that credibility wise is to not just tolerate the majority view, but also to repudiate past efforts to federalize the issue. There shouldn’t be any more efforts from Democrats to impose gender identity as the criteria whether it’s legislative or executive.
Beyond sports, trans activists should be kicked to the curb and Democrats should be make it clear that they’re extremists. Not only that, but trans activists have done a big disservice to trans people by ignoring the main issues affecting them like discrimination in jobs and housing. That should be widely acknowledged by Democrats everywhere.
This is as you say a very minor issue and not a hill to die on. I’m skeptical it did much damage last year and it was unsuccessfully used in 2022 and 2023. Just ask Senator Herschel Walker and Governor Daniel Cameron. Still, public opinion is clear and so Democrats shouldn’t be on the wrong side of it. Trans activists need to learn that the way to change minds is by persuasion not screaming at people.
Agreed, but "Kamala Harris is for they/them. Donald Trump is for you" was probably the most effective ad of the 2024 campaign. Better believe the GOP will be using variants of it in 2026.
I think that was less due to transphobia and more due to the idea that Kamala was prioritizing the use of taxpayer money to give prisoners cosmetic surgeries as part of a radical left-wing agenda instead of prioritizing the use of that taxpayer money to, say, help poor people or fight crime.
This is not such a minor issue. It just drives people crazy that people cannot talk common sense. This is not a nuanced issue that reasonable people can disagree on - it is fairly straightforward to 80% of the electorate, and yet this issue continues to rear its head from time to time, the latest being Jurupa Valley High School rostering a transgirl, AB Hernandex, in its volleyball team, and Schools forfeiting the games.
I would be careful about calling that ad the most effective. Inflation was by far the biggest factor. To the extent it was effective I’d argue it’s because Harris took many far-left positions and that played into it. The moral of the story is to cultivate an image as a moderate. That’s something lots of Democrats have done and so attacks like that aren’t likely to be as effective.
The root of sex segregation in sports really is just testosterone level segregation. And anyone can watch the earliest levels of youth soccer or youth track and see that the median boy and median girl are miles apart in athleticism with little distinction in outward appearance other than hair cut.
I follow Pete Buttigieg on Substack, and his position on this issue is much like the one some Republicans took on abortion, twenty years ago. "Leave it up to the states, or the municipalities, or the athletic organizations...they are better placed to decide." The problem with this stance is that it invites the inevitable follow-up, "So if all fifty states were to ban the participation of trans women in women's sports, you'd be okay with that?"
If he replies yes, then he's basically saying he's fine with a nationwide ban. If he replies no, then he's basically saying that he DOESN'T think localities should decide. Thus, it is a position that pleases no one, but gives everyone something to criticize.
If Mayor Pete plans to run for president, he needs to find a better place to stand on this issue.
Josh’s voice on this issue is especially important because as a gay man and a Democrat, the extremists in the LGBT community and the Democratic Party can’t call him a transphobe with any credibility, certainly not with the broader public.
As a gay man, I assure you that, yes, gay men can be and are called transphobes on the regular. I've been told I am a transphobe, a fascist, a Nazi, that I want trans people to die...blah blah. But never think that Josh has cover on this issue. Nobody does.
For sure. I’m just saying Leftists don’t have the obvious retort of, “Well, so and so is a straight white male; therefore, his opinion doesn’t matter” with commentators like Josh and Andrew Sullivan opposing their positions.
Oh they will. Look at what has happened to Martina Navratilova when she came out about this issue. Those people find anything to go after because it's all a purity test for them.
Not an obvious problem. It's about your genes, and cosmetic surgeries & hormone cocktails can't change your genes. Read on:
1. Josh: Up at the top, you wrote 'sex assigned at birth.' Verb 'assigned' gives the (wrong) impression that a form-filler got to choose the sex of the baby. It's not a choice or assignment, it's a fact. Your use of trans lingo diminishes your argument. See: Samuel Johnson's comment on whether material objects were real or imagined, he kicked a rock saying: I refute it thus.
2. My high tech medical provider now asks for one's genetic sex because they need to adjust treatments based on the patient's genetics. They dropped the 'assigned at birth' question.
3. Spooking Rep. Seth Moulton. Poor man got spooked when he said something sensible about his daughters being in a gym shower with boys. Mean person called him a Nazi, which, in 2025, is just a 4 letter word for: People We Hate.' It's a disgrace to the memory of the people who died in camps, as its constant repetition trivializes the deep evil of the Nazis and their acts. [NEVER AGAIN!] Democrats need the guts to push back on those abusers & trivializers of the Nazi label.
4. Remember the SCOTUS case from this summer? The one where the justices asked for facts (that pesky word again) on trans suicides and got evidentiary crumbs from the plaintiff. Where the post-mortem revealed how the case was really for the benefit of the showboating trans man attorney - bragging about being the first trans attorney to appear before SCOTUS. Attorney lost the case, kept the bragging rights. I recall a comment (The Atlantic?) from an activist on how defeat pushed the trans agenda back a decade.
5. Trans identity politics. How can Democrats deal with this in a way that doesn't push out Blacks and Hispanics from political opportunities?
6. Joe Biden. One of his first Executive Orders (on January 20, 2021) was on a trans issue! First trans Member of Congress is from a family with deep Delaware political roots with Biden. Which brings us to -
7. They/Them versus Inflation. Find the ad. Look at it. It's scary, like a horror movie clip about zombies. I saw it many times on late night TV. Inflation sucks, it's painful, but manageable. Zombies living next door: not manageable. Ad creator must have been channeling vibes from the late Lee Atwater, the master of nasty campaign ads.
The only place where I used "assigned" language was in a direct quote of the Pew Research Center poll question I was discussing. I agree that this language is obfuscatory and I don't use it myself -- sex is observed, not assigned. But the poll question is the poll question.
I think this is a perfectly defensible and electorally wise position, but I pair it with a good left-libertarian defense of allowing families to seek help for their gender-questioning children without being targeted by right-wing culture warriors *or* overzealous LGBTQ activists. It's not the parents' fault that U.S. medical establishments screwed this issue up so badly, and some parents in red states are literally being investigated for doing something that was perfectly legal and, at the time, well within the bounds of mainstream medicine.
That, to me, is the position liberals should take on behalf on LGBTQ (or just questioning) youth who are unfortunately kind of caught in the crossfire right now. Yes, for some it will entail eating crow, but that's where I would take it if I were, for instance, James Talarico.
I wonder if there is a little bit of commitment escalation going; having invested so heavily in support of trans activism, it is hard to come out against it without sounding unprincipled, and the best approach is to stay silent and take the hit and hope it goes away.
If we as a society say to a transperson, yes, you are a woman/man if you identify as such, "except in this one context-- it's an obvious problem.
Josh's biology v. social construction makes sense to me, and might help *me* around the issue for the pragmatic outcome I want. I also like the open v. specialized competitions construction mentioned elsewhere (which seems more readily the way to go when discussing with "Ma and Pa America" or whatever) and makes *me* feel better.
All that speaks to winning an election.
But do the trans people it directly affects (not allies, which most of us seem to be) feel that way?
Totally speculating, but I'd say probably not. So the internal (dem party and social issue) tension does not go away. But if it helps move enough votes to win an election, we are likely in a better position to fight for trans rights (except in that one context). Political brutality.
I declare this issue unimportant. Therefore, you should surrender completely and give me 100% of what I want on it, or else.
I feel like a lot of people on the left over learned the lessons from the gay marriage legalization activism. That started to pick up when gay marriage was still very unpopular and the left successfully (at least in their mind) moralized their way into getting people believe in legalization and public opinion reversed very quickly. However, stating the obvious, a gay couple getting married has no effect on a straight couple’s marriage but trans athletes have an obvious effect on those competing against them in a sport.
In a way, the modern left is the mirror image of the right with social conservatism. Both social conservatives and the modern left believe what they believe for moral reasons and don’t always think in practical terms. Social conservatives advocated against abortion on moralistic grounds and didn’t particularly care about nationwide popularity of their views. They viewed their cause as just and public opinion was irrelevant because they were right in their minds. The left has this mindset on many of their policy views and they view excluding trans women from any activity as immoral.
A bit off topic, but to speak to your second graf: the moral reasons of social conservatives are bounded by a God that only a minority of humans believe in; the moral reasons of the left (stereotypically speaking) are bounded by human life and experience, which belief is one factor, and this includes 100% of humans (which is far larger than a minority).
While everyone is blinkered by human limitations and mistakes, and the inability to see around moral corners, etc. etc., I'd say there is an enormous difference in the two moral frameworks you cite.
Where this leaves conflicted lefties like me is, the trans athlete herself, in this case, almost certainly does not see her denial of rights in this one venue-- for political expediency-- as okay. And while I want to win elections as I'm pretty "our side" is better for trans rights, to do so this way is nevertheless denying someone full rights (which would be immoral in this construct, yes). Which is insanity from a political POV, I get.
You're not denying trans athletes their rights anymore than you're denying a 250-lb wrestler the right to wrestle in the 150-lb weight class. They still have the right to play high school sports.
In what scenario? The open v. specific competition? In any case, you are not trans, I assume? Nor am I. What does a trans person say? Or are you not interested in the agency of the class of people in question?
What do you mean "what scenario"? They can try out for and play men's sports.
And I do have some experience not getting to play the sports I want in high school. I loved baseball but had the misfortune of not being that good and my high school having the best baseball team in the state at the time with several players eventually playing in college and the 2 that would actually play in the MLB. I wasn't able to make the cut for JV, let alone varsity.
It sucked but I didn't try to claim my rights were being violated or that I was somehow being discriminated against. I simply continued playing for the local community league, which in some ways was more fun because it was less competitive.
Ah, no, I was referring to the scenario Josh was talking about, or the one a commenter mentioned, if you have an open competition (all competitors who qualify based on speed, etc.) or specific (biological males).
I believe girls have been playing baseball with boys and even, occasionally, football (Sophie Cunningham from Fever is a notable example) with boys for a few decades now. So it's nothing new for a biological girl to play with a biological boy. We are talking about trans people, and gender is the term, not biology.
So the conversation is about what are the terms we offer people to try out for teams. You could no more try out for your high school baseball team NOW than I could have back in the day as an enrollee of a different high school. There were agreed upon criteria, probably certain age and attend the school, as basic as that. So what are the criteria for a given sport? biological female? gendered female? weight classes for wrestling?
It's obvious to wrestlers, coaches, wrestling authorities to design the competions based on weight (and NOT sex or gender, as I know high school girls have competed in high school wrestling). so we are talking about the terms, it's why josh wrote the article. it's why, presumably, you and I are responding in comments.
The terms are that, in sex-segregated sports, biological males play men's sports. I'm not sure what's not clear about that?
Just because a boy came out as trans, and even started HRT, does not make that boy a girl. That boy will be "trans girl", a compound noun to describe a certain class of boys who have transitioned. A female category was created out of an understanding that men and women are biologically different from one another and it does not make sense for them to compete in the same category, not even in Chess! Trans identified male athletes may be biologically different from other males, but they are also different biologically from females; on that basis alone they cannot be allowed to compete in the female category. The mistake you're making is that you think trans could arguably belong to either categories, but female category is the one with restriction on who can qualify, male category is the default/open one.
"Gender identity" is mostly fake too though. When elder millennials were teenagers, there was a condition called "gender identity disorder" with 1-in-10k prevalence. Since then, there's been a two order-of-magnitude increase in people deciding to be trans, concentrated among the population that would have joined the literary magazine and/or developed an eating disorder in our youth.
The true normal/centrist take is that you should be allowed to move to the big city and pretend to be the opposite sex if you want, but that normal people shouldn't really have to play along.
I’m essentially counting out the Maine oyster farmer and James Talerico because of their stances on trans issues. I think Dems are going to continue to learn this the hard way.
Yeah it's bizarre to me that the guy who's supposed to help us reconnect with culturally conservative voters in Texas has been on the 15 side of this 66-15 issue, and is now just giving word salad about it.
It's the Tim Walz Method.
Walz was going to help Kamala win because he was a football coach who liked hunting so he could relate to all the white dudes in Wisconsin and Michigan and win them over without having to compromise on any issue. Likewise, Platner is a manly oyster farmer and Marine and Talarico is a nice Jesus-loving Christian boy and will surely deliver Senate Democrats Texas and Maine just as effectively as Walz delivered Michigan and Wisconsin to Kamala.
It's pretty sad this is even a debate because the evidence is so overwhelmingly against the trans position. Their arguments are ludicrous and essentially rest on vibes.
A better way to phrase this is that there are “open”sports competitions where anyone can participate and specialized competitions with eligibility factors such as age or sex. For example, instead of men’s and women’s categories, the Olympics would designate categories as either “open” or for “cis-women”. In that way, trans women are not men, they are trans women and can compete in the open competition. That also wouldn’t rule out having a “trans women” category.
I certainly agree on the need to not have purity on this issue and many others related to it. I don’t think there should be a federal response to this issue though. The best way to get to that credibility wise is to not just tolerate the majority view, but also to repudiate past efforts to federalize the issue. There shouldn’t be any more efforts from Democrats to impose gender identity as the criteria whether it’s legislative or executive.
Beyond sports, trans activists should be kicked to the curb and Democrats should be make it clear that they’re extremists. Not only that, but trans activists have done a big disservice to trans people by ignoring the main issues affecting them like discrimination in jobs and housing. That should be widely acknowledged by Democrats everywhere.
This is as you say a very minor issue and not a hill to die on. I’m skeptical it did much damage last year and it was unsuccessfully used in 2022 and 2023. Just ask Senator Herschel Walker and Governor Daniel Cameron. Still, public opinion is clear and so Democrats shouldn’t be on the wrong side of it. Trans activists need to learn that the way to change minds is by persuasion not screaming at people.
Agreed, but "Kamala Harris is for they/them. Donald Trump is for you" was probably the most effective ad of the 2024 campaign. Better believe the GOP will be using variants of it in 2026.
I think that was less due to transphobia and more due to the idea that Kamala was prioritizing the use of taxpayer money to give prisoners cosmetic surgeries as part of a radical left-wing agenda instead of prioritizing the use of that taxpayer money to, say, help poor people or fight crime.
This is not such a minor issue. It just drives people crazy that people cannot talk common sense. This is not a nuanced issue that reasonable people can disagree on - it is fairly straightforward to 80% of the electorate, and yet this issue continues to rear its head from time to time, the latest being Jurupa Valley High School rostering a transgirl, AB Hernandex, in its volleyball team, and Schools forfeiting the games.
I would be careful about calling that ad the most effective. Inflation was by far the biggest factor. To the extent it was effective I’d argue it’s because Harris took many far-left positions and that played into it. The moral of the story is to cultivate an image as a moderate. That’s something lots of Democrats have done and so attacks like that aren’t likely to be as effective.
The root of sex segregation in sports really is just testosterone level segregation. And anyone can watch the earliest levels of youth soccer or youth track and see that the median boy and median girl are miles apart in athleticism with little distinction in outward appearance other than hair cut.
Thank you!
I follow Pete Buttigieg on Substack, and his position on this issue is much like the one some Republicans took on abortion, twenty years ago. "Leave it up to the states, or the municipalities, or the athletic organizations...they are better placed to decide." The problem with this stance is that it invites the inevitable follow-up, "So if all fifty states were to ban the participation of trans women in women's sports, you'd be okay with that?"
If he replies yes, then he's basically saying he's fine with a nationwide ban. If he replies no, then he's basically saying that he DOESN'T think localities should decide. Thus, it is a position that pleases no one, but gives everyone something to criticize.
If Mayor Pete plans to run for president, he needs to find a better place to stand on this issue.
Josh’s voice on this issue is especially important because as a gay man and a Democrat, the extremists in the LGBT community and the Democratic Party can’t call him a transphobe with any credibility, certainly not with the broader public.
As a gay man, I assure you that, yes, gay men can be and are called transphobes on the regular. I've been told I am a transphobe, a fascist, a Nazi, that I want trans people to die...blah blah. But never think that Josh has cover on this issue. Nobody does.
For sure. I’m just saying Leftists don’t have the obvious retort of, “Well, so and so is a straight white male; therefore, his opinion doesn’t matter” with commentators like Josh and Andrew Sullivan opposing their positions.
You think Andrew Sullivan hasn’t been called a transphobe? You can call anyone anything. It doesn’t have to be rooted in reality.
Oh they will. Look at what has happened to Martina Navratilova when she came out about this issue. Those people find anything to go after because it's all a purity test for them.
Go look up "cotton ceiling."
Wait. Better yet, don't.
Not an obvious problem. It's about your genes, and cosmetic surgeries & hormone cocktails can't change your genes. Read on:
1. Josh: Up at the top, you wrote 'sex assigned at birth.' Verb 'assigned' gives the (wrong) impression that a form-filler got to choose the sex of the baby. It's not a choice or assignment, it's a fact. Your use of trans lingo diminishes your argument. See: Samuel Johnson's comment on whether material objects were real or imagined, he kicked a rock saying: I refute it thus.
2. My high tech medical provider now asks for one's genetic sex because they need to adjust treatments based on the patient's genetics. They dropped the 'assigned at birth' question.
3. Spooking Rep. Seth Moulton. Poor man got spooked when he said something sensible about his daughters being in a gym shower with boys. Mean person called him a Nazi, which, in 2025, is just a 4 letter word for: People We Hate.' It's a disgrace to the memory of the people who died in camps, as its constant repetition trivializes the deep evil of the Nazis and their acts. [NEVER AGAIN!] Democrats need the guts to push back on those abusers & trivializers of the Nazi label.
4. Remember the SCOTUS case from this summer? The one where the justices asked for facts (that pesky word again) on trans suicides and got evidentiary crumbs from the plaintiff. Where the post-mortem revealed how the case was really for the benefit of the showboating trans man attorney - bragging about being the first trans attorney to appear before SCOTUS. Attorney lost the case, kept the bragging rights. I recall a comment (The Atlantic?) from an activist on how defeat pushed the trans agenda back a decade.
5. Trans identity politics. How can Democrats deal with this in a way that doesn't push out Blacks and Hispanics from political opportunities?
6. Joe Biden. One of his first Executive Orders (on January 20, 2021) was on a trans issue! First trans Member of Congress is from a family with deep Delaware political roots with Biden. Which brings us to -
7. They/Them versus Inflation. Find the ad. Look at it. It's scary, like a horror movie clip about zombies. I saw it many times on late night TV. Inflation sucks, it's painful, but manageable. Zombies living next door: not manageable. Ad creator must have been channeling vibes from the late Lee Atwater, the master of nasty campaign ads.
The only place where I used "assigned" language was in a direct quote of the Pew Research Center poll question I was discussing. I agree that this language is obfuscatory and I don't use it myself -- sex is observed, not assigned. But the poll question is the poll question.
I think this is a perfectly defensible and electorally wise position, but I pair it with a good left-libertarian defense of allowing families to seek help for their gender-questioning children without being targeted by right-wing culture warriors *or* overzealous LGBTQ activists. It's not the parents' fault that U.S. medical establishments screwed this issue up so badly, and some parents in red states are literally being investigated for doing something that was perfectly legal and, at the time, well within the bounds of mainstream medicine.
That, to me, is the position liberals should take on behalf on LGBTQ (or just questioning) youth who are unfortunately kind of caught in the crossfire right now. Yes, for some it will entail eating crow, but that's where I would take it if I were, for instance, James Talarico.
I wonder if there is a little bit of commitment escalation going; having invested so heavily in support of trans activism, it is hard to come out against it without sounding unprincipled, and the best approach is to stay silent and take the hit and hope it goes away.
I have to admit this issue perplexes me.
If we as a society say to a transperson, yes, you are a woman/man if you identify as such, "except in this one context-- it's an obvious problem.
Josh's biology v. social construction makes sense to me, and might help *me* around the issue for the pragmatic outcome I want. I also like the open v. specialized competitions construction mentioned elsewhere (which seems more readily the way to go when discussing with "Ma and Pa America" or whatever) and makes *me* feel better.
All that speaks to winning an election.
But do the trans people it directly affects (not allies, which most of us seem to be) feel that way?
Totally speculating, but I'd say probably not. So the internal (dem party and social issue) tension does not go away. But if it helps move enough votes to win an election, we are likely in a better position to fight for trans rights (except in that one context). Political brutality.