Politico: GOP seizes on women's sports as unlikely wedge issue

[Autumn]

GOP seizes on women's sports as unlikely wedge issue
Republicans from former President Donald Trump on down are couching their opposition to expanding transgender rights as a defense of girls' and women's sports.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/05/gop-transgender-rights-women-sports-473746
Republicans are laying claim to an unlikely mantle: the party of women’s sports.

Eager to find a winning culture war issue, former President Donald Trump and other GOP leaders are increasingly touting themselves as champions of women in sports by pushing back against President Joe Biden's efforts to expand transgender rights.The effort — which critics call transphobic and likely to backfire — extends from the roughly 20 Republican-controlled states where legislators are advancing bills to keep transgender women from participating in interscholastic sports, to Trump himself, who told attendees this past weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida that it was “so important” to “protect women’s sports.”

“This issue will help [the] GOP win midterms,” said Stephen Miller, the former Trump White House aide who helped write his CPAC speech.

Eager to find a winning culture war issue, former President Donald Trump and other GOP leaders are increasingly touting themselves as champions of women in sports by pushing back against President Joe Biden's efforts to expand transgender rights.

The effort — which critics call transphobic and likely to backfire — extends from the roughly 20 Republican-controlled states where legislators are advancing bills to keep transgender women from participating in interscholastic sports, to Trump himself, who told attendees this past weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida that it was “so important” to “protect women’s sports.”

[jcgoldie]

1. exactly!

Thanks democrats for ruining the potatohead olympics!

[marmar]

2. Transgender athletes, Mr. Potato Head, Dr. Seuss.....

..... they've clearly decided culture wars (and voter suppression) are their 2022 goals.

[LizBeth]

3. As an X swimmer dependent on the college scholarship received, I am interested in this subject and

how it is walked for sure. It is way down on my list as a decision with who I vote for. But it certainly matters.

[Autumn]

4. That why the republicans are using this as a wedge. It works on a lot of their women.

Several prominent Republican officials and potential 2024 hopefuls have already begun testing messages around women’s sports. Some claim transgender women enjoy performance advantages over their cisgender teammates and competitors, and could thus cause the latter group to lose out on scholarships and collegiate opportunities. Currently, the National Collegiate Athletic Association requires transgender women to undergo 12 months of treatment to suppress testosterone before they are permitted to compete with other women.

Others claim trans-inclusive sports policies are an infringement on women’s rights or a violation of Title IX, the 1972 federal law that paved the way for women’s equality in sports and education.

“This is the wedge issue that will bring suburban women back to the polls and increase their support for Republicans, and Republicans would be foolish not to lean into it,” said Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, a socially conservative group that has been privately urging Republicans to take on the subject since last year.

more from the OP

[LizBeth]

5. It "works" on a lot of women. Facts and education matter. Keeping it clinical in conversation

"transgender women to undergo 12 months of treatment to suppress testosterone" Education on the subject is important. But to dismiss women and girls concerns aren't going to work either.

[Autumn]

6. Are you saying that Dems dismiss women and girls concerns? Yes fact and education do matter,

but the GOP sure does love their scare tactics don't they.

[LizBeth]

7. I am saying to see it just as a Republican's tool is a mistake. I am saying that we need to have a

very real conversation about this issue so that we can all sit back and be comfortable with this. Allowing not only protection for our Trans girls but our cis girls.

I am saying because we see Republicans using it as a tool to attack women, and ultimately trans, they do not give a flipping fuck about women and girls. It does not mean that a lot of cis women are not going to be concerned with this issue, while protecting Trans rights. Their concern should not be readily dismissed.

[Autumn]

8. Republicans don't give a fuck about any conversation. It a cudgel to them and I will and do dismiss

anything that Republicans have concerns about. I'm very comfortable with any Trans woman or man. If you aren't... that's your problem.

[LizBeth]

10. I didn't say anything about having a conversation with republicans and along with the rest of your

post, .. You sure do direct a conversation where works for you. So hostile and an attack, so swiftly. I am so done with the lack of good faith when it comes to an interaction. I deleted a dudes post on my FB yesterday about having the audacity to wag the finger at me about books and Dr Suess, and the book burnin' Dems. I posted today how I wasn't gonna play that and would be a delete, I had the power. It was an awesome fun post. But ya.... Whatever. To even argue the Democratic party is not all about educating, books, reading, thru resources programs and money. Just not having any of it.

[Autumn]

11. No one is arguing the Democratic party is not about educating, books, reading, etc

You appear to be arguing in favor of the GOPs plan to be the champions of women in sports by pushing back against Biden's efforts to expand transgender rights. Either you read the article in the OP or not. The article discusses the GOP plan to convince women they are being saved from transgender women participating in interscholastic sports, you know, like swimming, to get them to vote for them. Either you read the article or not.

LizBeth (7,743 posts)

7. I am saying to see it just as a Republican's tool is a mistake. I am saying that we need to have a

very real conversation about this issue so that we can all sit back and be comfortable with this. Allowing not only protection for our Trans girls but our cis girls.

I am saying because we see Republicans using it as a tool to attack women, and ultimately trans, they do not give a flipping fuck about women and girls. It does not mean that a lot of cis women are not going to be concerned with this issue, while protecting Trans rights. Their concern should not be readily dismissed.

GOP concerns about Trans girls are one of two things, phony or uniformed bullshit. I, and other liberals need no discussion with the GOP, it's all been done. Sorry you missed it.

[LizBeth]

14. You may not be arguing that but someone absoutely was arguing it, hence my conversation in

that particular post to provide you an example of what I am not going to participate in. At this point, the conversation is all yours.

[Autumn]

17. You are the only one who said that we need to have a very real conversation about this issue,

and that to see what the Republicans are doing, which is actually a scare tactic to get conservative women to vote for them, as a Republican's tool is a mistake. What on earth should we see it as?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

12. "I am saying that we need to have a very real conversation about this issue so that we can all sit

back and be comfortable with this."

What is "this" issue and be comfortable with what?

[LizBeth]

13. Allowing not only protection for our trans girls but our cis girls.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

15. What kinds of protections? Protections from what?

[LizBeth]

16. Did you read the article or my first post concerns as an X swimmer going to university

on a swimming scholarship? That was addressed and with conversation people can be informed. Something feels odd about these conversations so, I am stepping away here. But two posters have certainly made conversation challenging to say the least, lol. Saying I said things I didn't then not reading what I did say. Seems like lots of work here.

Have a good one. I think Dems have this.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

18. Your first post said this:

As an X swimmer dependent on the college scholarship received, I am interested in this subject and how it is walked for sure. It is way down on my list as a decision with who I vote for. But it certainly matters."

Which was pretty vague, so I'm trying to figure out what, exactly, your concern is, that's all.

[LizBeth]

20. 2nd post may clarify.

Facts and education matter. Keeping it clinical in conversation

"transgender women to undergo 12 months of treatment to suppress testosterone" Education on the subject is important. But to dismiss women and girls concerns aren't going to work either.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

21. "But to dismiss women and girls concerns aren't going to work either."

👏What 👏 are 👏 the 👏 concerns?

ETA: Trans women and trans girls are women and girls. Do you mean their concerns?

[Autumn]

25. The concerns have been voiced by Nikki Haley and other Republicans

repeatedly. And of course the bathroom concern. Gotta protect those Republican women and their little athletes ya know.

“Across the sporting world, the game is being rigged against women and in favor of biological men,”

And of course that appeals to the swimming and track meet Moms and participants.

“I hear from mothers all the time who are getting up at the crack of dawn to take their daughters to swim practice or attending all-weekend track meets, and they do not want biological men competing on their daughters’ teams. They know that it would be detrimental to their daughters’ abilities to achieve scholarships and recognition,”

[WhiskeyGrinder]

27. Oh, I know what the "concerns" are. But they're specious. I'm always interested in what people

who are otherwise on "my side" might have to say about it, though.

[sir pball]

41. The NCAA already has rules for transgender females.

If I Recall Correctly, transfems are fine as long as their T levels are the same as cisfems.

Seems about as fair as it can be to me.

Also, that any state, say TN, with a more restrictive law would probably be banned from NCAA competition - and if there's one thing racist redneck shitsticks hate more than "boys playing girls sports", it's being kicked out of the SEC. The Vols not being a league team is literally unthinkable to them.

[Initech]

9. My MAGA neighbors have lobbed onto this conspiracy theory.

And some of their conversations about it are downright disturbing. I blame Fox / Infowars for spreading this bullshit.

[progressoid]

19. I have a "friend" for whom this is his new pet grievance.

This and gay couples adopting kids.

Unsurprisingly, he's an evangelical and trumper.

[Initech]

28. What's funny is the only place I've ever actually seen this happen is Futurama.

Is on the Futurama episode "Bend Her".

[progressoid]

31. I forgot about that episode!

In a related theme, I just saw some RW idiot using this scene from Life of Brian as an argument in support of their transphobia.

/facepalm/

[Initech]

32. Well a lot of their fears are based on complete bullshit.

And also derived from movies - and they claim to hate Hollywood liberals. But yeah I was watching that episode the other day and was like "holy shit! This is every Fox argument I've ever heard!".

[BradAllison]

22. Kelly Fluffer just got told to go fuck herself by her own players.

Buried by the "writer".

[Autumn]

23. If you're talking about Kelly Loeffler, it's in the article, not buried by the writer.

[BradAllison]

24. It got all of one sentence, I consider it buried.

Yet if you go to the website, she featured in the topline picture like the conquering hero while gushing over her irrelevant bill.

Hopefully we never hear of her again.

[Autumn]

26. Loffeler is irrelevant. Haley on the other hand isn't. The media will pretend she's a contender.

[elevator]

29. This is a legitimate issue of fairness in an athletic competition.

It is not being transphobic to create a level playing field for girl's/women's sports. This issue arose in the sixties when E.German and Russian women were using steroids and hormone injections to unfairly compete in international competition. Testing standards were enacted. Something similar may be needed in this case. I've been called anti-trans for a post like this on another board. If we take that attitude, the rethugs will win.

[radius777]

30. +1. The Dem base is divided on the trans issue,

more than some realize. PoC tend to be more conservative on gender/orientation issues to begin with, and some women feel their hard fought rights for womens' sports are being infringed upon.

The Repubs deal in division, and are trying to pick off some of our base, like they did with white conservative Dems in a previous era. We did worse with Latinos this time which IMO is not just due to lack of outreach on our part - but due to them moving rightward on some of these issues.

[Elessar Zappa]

33. Trans women are women.

So they have a say when it comes to this issue. There’s no excuse for bigotry. If some women aren’t comfortable calling trans women a part of their community, that’s on them.

[eShirl]

37. agree completely!

[elevator]

36. This is not a trans issue.

This is an issue of eligibility for an athletic competition. Men who use steroids are exclude from competition. It is exactly the same issue.

[AZProgressive]

38. This article is from months before the election

Former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign has received some scathing reviews from Latino political experts.

Biden's primary campaign had a distant, if not "tense," relationship with Latino voters as he not only neglected to reach out to them but never quite rectified "his connection to the Obama administration's aggressive deportation policy," Politico reports. Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee "in spite of, not because of" his Latino outreach, Politico writes, but more than 20 Latino political operatives say his luck may not hold in the general election.

Around 32 million Latinos are expected to be eligible to vote in the U.S. this fall, making them the largest nonwhite voting bloc in the country. Their votes are especially valuable to Biden in potentially flippable states such as Arizona and Texas. But the Biden team doesn't seem to be acknowledging this fact. "I do not think that the Biden campaign thinks that Latinos are part of their path to victory," Jess Morales Rocketto, the former digital organizing director for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, told Politico.

(Snip)

"Right now I can't tell what their strategy is with the Latino community. I just don't see it," an anonymous Latino lawmaker told Politico. "They have a lot of people out there willing to help, but they're not engaging" those potential recruits. Read more about Biden's fraught Latino outreach at Politico.

https://news.yahoo.com/biden-campaign-doesnt-consider-latinos-143056489.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAABh2uZM2DLV1fcJuS_Z0jOrRqNTbWk8IlOXH8YwAbpyyp_9eBhiHc9chngORFXAbZq1_dVFghfjDNofwvKw70pfd1j3gNo4563oGP7BB1ghgogqnzJVLWab6uqHsTpCIY7AqFm1t3RKhP1XeQlJWJ26KlVirXqP8jE8fNbXc2B1N

On November 3rd, Donald Trump carried Florida by nearly four hundred thousand votes, more than twice the margin that he received in 2016. Four years after Clinton won Miami-Dade by thirty percentage points, Biden performed dismally—beating Trump by only seven per cent. Democrats lost two House seats, along with key races at the county and state levels. To the shock of many Democrats, Trump improved his standing in Miami-Dade in majority Latino, Black, and white precincts alike. Exit polls showed that he won roughly fifty-five per cent of the Cuban-American vote, thirty per cent of the Puerto Rican vote, and forty-eight per cent among myriad other Latino diasporas. Wills was shattered by the results but not surprised. For months, he had been pleading for help. Wills and his fiancée, Daniela Ferrera, a campaign volunteer, have blamed the campaign’s state leadership for contributing to Biden’s disastrous performance in Florida.

Wills and Ferrera, who are both Cuban-Americans, had supported the Republican Party until Trump became the Party’s nominee, in 2015. Ferrera, who is twenty-two, fled Cuba with her family seventeen years ago. “I know what an authoritarian looks like,” she said, noting also that she was repulsed by Trump’s bigotry toward Latinos. Wills, who is thirty-eight, shared Ferrera’s opposition to Trump’s divisiveness and was keen to help Democrats make inroads with the state’s young Cuban voters, who were seen as being more liberal than their parents. A Florida political operative, he believed that the former Vice-President could turn Florida blue. But, after three months working on Biden’s campaign, he grew disenchanted with the state leadership’s field operation and its apparent disregard for the Latino electorate. “It was clear that the resources for the Hispanic team were an afterthought,” Wills told me. “They spat on us, trampled on us, and ran over us.”

A spokesperson for Biden’s state campaign said that it spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a wide-ranging effort across the state to convince Latinos to back Biden. “Just in the last weeks, we announced a separate six-figure get-out-the-vote investment for Hispanic outreach, which included direct voter contact, paid media for smaller, micro-targeted outlets, and other outreach and events for the Hispanic program,” the spokesperson said. “This funding always emphasized voter-contact efforts.”

But e-mails and documents obtained by The New Yorker show that the campaign’s state leadership did not respond to dozens of requests and warnings raised over the final three months of the race by members of its Latino-outreach team. In interviews, three members of the team said that they were never allocated a fixed budget, were not provided access to a Spanish-language auto-dialer until late September, and did not receive bilingual campaign literature in Miami-Dade until three days before the election.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/campaign-chronicles/as-trump-gained-latino-support-in-florida-bidens-campaign-ignored-warnings

It is frustrating knowing the Biden campaign did a poor job of reaching out but after the election they realize they didn't do as well so they come up with narratives. Also Trump was campaigning during his entire term especially in Florida.

Biden still did well with 65% of the Latino/hispanic vote and they carried him in this state. There are conservatives in all identities but that doesn't mean we should do what they want.

Trump claimed the Democrats are anti-woman during his CPAC speech so they are certainly going to run on these wedge issues even though there aren't that many trans athletes.

[maxsolomon]

34. Largely hypothetical issues like this are catnip for propagandists.

HOW MANY TRANS ATHLETES ARE THERE ANYWAY?

Stop taking the bait.

[elevator]

35. Doesn't matter how many there are.

If a liberal person cannot differentiate between a valid issue about fairness in an athletic competition and true limitation of trans rights, then they have taken the bait. Male athletes who use steroids are barred from competition, so there are standards that should be observed.

[maxsolomon]

39. It's similar to the Trans bathroom panic.

Last edited Fri Mar 12, 2021, 02:47 PM - Edit history (1)

It's a hypothetical, theoretical issue; it will impact virtually no one. Yet that's what Fox spends its time ginning up outrage among elderly shut ins, along with Woke Mobs and Deficits and Gun Rights and Fascist Antifascists.

There are vastly more important issues in America and they know it. They just don't want their viewers/GOP voters to think about those.

I'm not sure who the "liberal person who cannot differentiate" is, but I can assure you, I understand the issue.

[elevator]

40. You don't understand the issue. If you did you'd realize it is not remotely like

the bathroom debate. This is about fair competition in an athletic event. Of course there are more important issues. You can say that about dozens, or hundreds of other issues. It is also not true it will impact virtually no one, which also is a bogus argument. How many have to be impacted for it to be worth your consideration? If we can't admit this is legitimate and has nothing to do with depriving a trans person of a right, but it is depriving an athlete their right to a fair competition. Comprende?

Just because some on the right are using it as a cultural issue doesn't mean we have to ignore the fact that it needs to be addressed. It is not hypothetical as it has already happened and will again in the future.

[maxsolomon]

42. I do understand it.

I don't even disagree with you on whether it's fair. I just don't think it's important, at least not important enough to focus Liberal outrage on, or argue about with bad faith Conservative propagandists over.

To wit: “This issue will help [the] GOP win midterms,” said Stephen Miller, the former Trump White House aide who helped write his CPAC speech.

I no longer think sports are important, and I follow them. I think they're entertainment. I understand that others think they're vitally important.

[elevator]

43. It won't help Repugs at all if Dems use some common sense.

That is the point...don't get outraged about the issue. Dems need to agree to examine the issue and determine how to resolve it. It should be dealt with by the organizations responsible for insuring equitable competitions.