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Atheism Should Leave Its Transphobia Behind in the New Year (www.youtube.com)

submitted 4 days ago by Powderhorn@beehaw.org to c/lgbtq_plus@beehaw.org

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Not that there's anything good about this, but hearing that both Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins "resigned" from whatever honorary positions they had with the FFRF rather made my heart sink.

I was a linguistics student for a time, and Pinker's books always had a sociolinguistic aspect to them, but I never saw transphobia. It was admittedly a while back, so it really wasn't yet settling into the national consciousness.

I also admired Dawkins' writing style; again, I saw nothing transphobic.

So for both of these guys to be like "nope, you should have totally kept a piece up that says transwomen should have fewer rights and options" is, maybe, the final insult of 2024.

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[-] xilliah@beehaw.org 5 points 4 days ago

Regarding athletes, aren't there like different categories within the genders too? Where I live there's some massive cisgender women, like they're muscular, wide, and tall. I can't see those competing against a smaller woman in certain sports.

[-] VerticaGG@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Womens sports were never about protecting women, full stop. They were sold as such, sure (racist and transphobic moralizing fear campaigns have so often scored political offices).

Women's sports exist to protect (a faceless majority of) men's egos from women's excellence. The fact that FIDE still enforces women's chess is a glaring example.

To "cover all bases" though: When it comes to physiology, it would make so much more sense to have weight classes irregardless of sex or gender identity.

Fact is we have entrenched, wealthy institutions with lots of bastards who refuse to see the humanity of another gender or skin tone other than their own, and until they croak they'll drag out every backwards tradition they can force down our throats.

[-] Randomguy@lemm.ee 3 points 3 days ago

The fact that FIDE still enforces women's chess is a glaring example.

There is no man's chess, you know? Women can and do participate in open tournaments against men.

Woman's chess is a DEI program to incentivize woman's participation in chess in a more inclusive environment, because, surprise surprise, chess has a misogyny problem. You can argue that this doesn't work or something, but it definitely isn't there to protect men's egos (especially considering titles acquired in women's chess tournaments are worth less than regular titles).

[-] VerticaGG@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 days ago

Lol ok

[-] xilliah@beehaw.org 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Wait, so, you're telling me men feel pain? 🤔

All joking aside I feel so naive sometimes. Women's chess? Like what the actual 🦆

[-] jansk@beehaw.org 1 points 1 day ago

VerticaGG is misrepresenting how this actually works. The main FIDE chess league is open to anyone, men or women or whatever. But because women tend to do worse in chess (for whatever reason, you can discuss why until the cows come home but it isn't the point) exclusive women-only titles and tournaments were created in order to encourage more women to take part.

For example there is the Woman Grand Master title which is significantly easier to achieve than regular Grand Master, but women can and have achieved both.

It seems to have worked, too. The top women players today are fantastic, and have dramatically reduced the gap in the top rankings. We could yet see a woman as world champion for the first time.