Forums

Maybe she bought some cheap, bad shit ?   She surely had enough money to buy the good stuff ?    Its sad when people cant shake their demons.....

Sis, with all kind and due respect, not everything requires such an analytical rant......  This ongoing MAGA issue of trans is basically their knee-jerk reaction to THEIR idea that men in girls sports are basically "sick" dudes with cocks being female imposters crashing womens sports where they have some physical advantage....  I really dont believe they go thru a fraction of the thought process you have laid out here?   All they know and believe is the dudes are mentally sick,  just as they see drag queens and other dudes that take cock up the butt....   Its all the same to them ......F*GS !     So trying to apply some degree of rational to their position is a fruitless and useless exercise IMO....   They will NEVER see it any other way than a "sickness"......and not in any world will it ever be OK for them.     I honestly dont believe many minds are ever changed by all the politician rally stump speeches.   People just attend to find and hear rhetoric that already comports with their own,  and that will be the person they often will vote for.....  The people still supporting Trump have always held the beliefs they hold, and Trump is their guy that gives license and justification to those beliefs, which the majority of Americans DO NOT share.....    Sometimes a reason is simple and obvious, and all the debating is unnecessary,  as much as I LOVE when you rant......  

or Isle of Man and Channel Islands ?

Great question.  Simple answer and long answer. Simple answer:  Empathy.    Long answer:  I think there are three culture war issues that are toxic to Democrats.  1) Trans/forcing boys to be girls,  2)  Defund the police,   3) Open the borders and let rapists in.    Those are arguably Trump's three greatest hits for years now.  They got him in the White House.  Twice, by my count.  "High prices" no longer works for him like in 2024, since his dumb ass failures are the cause of high prices.  So they are pivoting to "communism."  Happily, I don't think voters will somehow be convinced that Trump's high prices are okay, since Democratic communism is worse.  🤔 You asked about trans, of course.  I think that issue more than any is crying for a "Sister Souljah" moment.  And girls' sports is the ideal place to focus it.    Republicans obviously love the issue because it is an 80/20 issue.  Pew says 2 in 3 Americans favor a legal ban on trans participation in girls' sports, and about 80 % of Americans feel uncomfortable with it.  By one count last year there were 745 anti-trans bills in state legislatures.  It is a wildly popular and effective way for sporting Republicans to pummel Democrats to a bloody pulp.  For sports betting, this is awesome.  Because on this issue Democrats will lose pretty much every fucking time. Some Democrat running for President should take a pretty hard line position that some of this stuff went too far.  And the ideal person to do that is Pete Buttigieg.  Since it would burnish his "reasonable moderate" credentials.  Someone like Pete can do it with a tone of empathy.  Of course we want to help these kids.  Of course they deserve our empathy.   Newsom has been working this issue of trans in sports.  He was Mayor Same Sex Marriage, so he also has empathy credentials to talk about this.  And there is a "fairness" difference he has focused on.  Giving marriage to Gay men essentially said we don't want to take anything away from marriage, or Straight couples.  We actually want to add to it.  An equivalent would be having trans sports teams.  Which we do, of course.  But that doesn't really solve the issue of whether a lone trans woman or girl can compete or join a team. The nice thing about Trump 2.0 is we now know that if we want 100 % of an issue, we will actually get 0 %.  At least once the reaction grows strong enough to elect someone like Trump.  You want open borders?  Great.  We'll deport your nephew, who has a child and works at a construction company.  That's what Hispanics in Texas are learning.  You want no restrictions on trans women in sports?  Great.  We'll have 1000 fucking bills and talk EVERY FUCKING DAY about how these trans people are a MENACE to your daughter.  How is that better for trans people and immigrants? Jon Ossoff created a "how to" guidebook on this, as far as it goes. He voted against a federal ban on trans women and girls participating in female sports.  He says his support for the LGBTQ community is "ironclad."  So he framed it as keep the federal government out of these decisions.  If this was supposed to give Republicans a way to make Ossoff look extreme, it's not working.  But it begs the question of who should decide, and what limits are okay.  My own impression is that "local control" and "eligibility standards" are a moderate path that neither bans something completely, nor condones something 100 %.  Something like this from SF.gov, which sounds Ossoff-like: Same thing with the border.  The happy news is that perceived Biden "open borders" led to Trump "ICE bullets in American bodies," which horrified middle America.  Democrats now have an opening for a reasonable compromise once we take power again. My personal experience, anecdotally, is this  inflames moderate Moms in particular.  I had a fascinating dinner with the wife of one of my nephews, with her two teen daughters present.  She knows I am a "Gay activist" type.  So she basically interrogated me.  And it was clear that all this stuff about doing stuff to teens without parental knowledge or consent makes her feel Democrats are nuts.  It fits right in of course that she is a quasi-anti-vaxxer who likes RFK, Jr.  And probably there is no way for a Democrat to win her vote.  But she lives in a Southern state, and she could probably go for somebody like Andy Beshear.  All that said, we have a close relationship.  And she and her Mom,, who is even more conservative, are very comfortable with me being Gay.  That said, while we were at dinner, she said, "I would have a real problem if one of my daughters turned out to be Gay."  Happily, one of her daughters is marrying a guy next month.  Can't wait for the wedding. Empathy and tolerance were the cards the LGBTQ movement played expertly to win legal same sex marriage.  I think a majority of Americans, including many conservatives, are open to empathy on this issue.  They are not open to what seem like crazy and radical ideas to them.  Some smart and empathetic politician at the national level, like Pete Buttigieg or Jon Ossoff, is going to need to figure this out.  The polling and my personal experience, of which I cited just one example, align with the idea that a lot of moderate Moms see this as textbook evidence of how Democrats are way too far out there.   Great question.  We should be asking questions like this a lot.  Rant over.  

Obviously these fine Gentlemen have not read this forum, else they'll soon form a different opinion.