Chairchucker

I would say that 'biological female' is not a remotely useful term, and frequently it is not used for clarity, (because that is not what it provides) it is used with the intent to hurt and deny the identity of trans women. Because frequently it is used in conjunction with calling a trans woman a 'biological male'. To demonstrate why I don't think 'biological female' is a particularly useful term, in this or any context, I'm going to talk briefly about Mack Beggs. Mack was the subject of an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary entitled Mack Wrestles. He was a collegiate wrestler, and in 2017 he beat Chelsea Sanchez to win the Texas Girls' 110 lb championship. If you're wondering why Mack, a person I've just used the pronoun 'he' for, was wrestling against a girl in a girls' championship, it's because Texas athletic rules at the time had a rule that you must compete in the league for the sex assigned at birth. Mack is a trans man, or as someone might ignorantly say, a 'biological female'. But, crucially, Mack is obviously not who people like the author of that crappy article are talking about when they refer to 'biological females'. Now they could say 'biological females who haven't transitioned to men', but guess what, there's already a term for that, and that term is 'cis woman'. So no, Bruce, I would say to anyone wanting to use the term 'biological females' to refer to women who are not trans, do not do this, say 'cis women'. You will be achieving a better level of clarity and as a bonus, not making trans women feel trash by the comparison. Of course a big problem with using 'capable of having children' as the definition is that many are not. Not after menopause. Not if you're sterile. Not, for many, if you've had certain conditions like endometriosis. Some people prefer definition relating to numbers of X and Y chromosomes, with the issue being that some people may instead be born with XXY, or XO, or have the usual expected chromosomes but not have the sexual characteristics to match. And for most people you or I interact with, their number or type of chromosomes or what sexual organs they have will never be any of our business. In my day to day life, in the ways I interact with someone, what someone is 'biologically' is as meaningless as it is hard to pin down. Socially, in terms of how I relate to people, I'm gonna find terms like 'man', 'woman' or 'non-binary' with adjectives like 'cis' or 'trans' if further clarification is needed, infinitely more useful. As it relates to sport, however: Sport isn't fair. Some people are taller. They have an unfair advantage over me in a bunch of sports like basketball or volleyball where height matters, and no amount of training will make that not true. Michael Phelps has an abnormally large lung capacity. I'm not averse to requiring a certain testosterone level at certain levels of competitive sport, but in the overwhelming majority of cases my stance is: let women play sport with women, let men play sport with men, stop proposing dumb stuff like a whole separate league for the three trans people in the state.

'Biological female' and 'biological male' are crappy dog whistley terms that also don't give enough information. Use the phrase 'cis women' you sorry excuse for a journalist. Also no actually trans women don't necessarily have levels of elevated testosterone, because most competitions require them to have been on HRT to reduce their testosterone for about two years, which was the case with Lia Thomas. On the Lia Thomas story, no again to that worthless excuse for a journalist, the placing does not tell the whole story. While competing in the men's comp, Lia was undergoing HRT from May 2019 until what appears to be her last swim in the men's comp in January 2020 before taking a year off before competing in the women's comp, as per competition rules. Her pre HRT accolades were pretty good, and included a 6th fastest time in the country in 2017. It's interesting that a lot of the dialogue about her 'rise' from some ridiculously off the pace ranking in the men's comp to 'one of the top-ranked' swimmers in the women's comp seems to have her soaring from a mid 500s ranking. One can only assume that ranking is from when she was on testosterone blockers, because a quick squiz at an archived version of the swimcloud site shows something of a different story. That archived page here: https://web.archive.org/web/20220318183249/https://www.swimcloud.com/swimmer/314430/rankings/ Starts ranked only 84th in the state in 2013-14, rises to 99th out of all high school students in 16-17, and 100th in the country in the 2018-19 season. Her current swimcloud page inconveniently lacks all that, in favour of showing only her 2021-22 ranking, where she apparently rose to 44th in the country. Meanwhile, Cora Dupre, who was 45th in the country that season, was 83rd the season before. So no, actually, Lia Thomas was an elite swimmer when she competed in the men's comp, became merely 'very good' when she was competing against men but taking HRT, and reverted to elite when she was temporarily allowed to actually compete as a woman.

Probably. I don't pay too much attention to what the book is they're flicking through.

Like I said, no voter ID required. Just use some common security questions I guess.

Condolences America, this sucks. Re: voter ID, not required here in Australia. They asked me my name, address, maybe my date of birth, I don't remember for sure, then ticked me off a list. But yeah the imaginary threat of voter fraud is less significant than the very real use of ID laws to suppress voting by, disproportionately, ethnic minories, poor people, elderly people.

Maybe he got lost on the way to the local school.

Probably just out walking his shotgun.

This feels like sarcasm but also reads identically to things I have seen people earnestly say, may I please have a hint as to whether you are serious?

No! I acknowledge that he SAID he doesn't agree with it once it became apparent that it was deeply unpopular! Again, he is a liar!

Yes. He is constantly lying. He supported abortion bans and suddenly walked it the heck back and tried to downplay it when he realised what a deeply unpopular move it was.

Paradoxically, while I think Trump being dead (or just, removed from the public consciousness and discourse and with his tiny sex offending hands kept well away from the nether regions of women everywhere) would immediately make the world an immeasurably better place, I don't think politically motivated assassinations are a good precedent to set. I also don't think we need to avoid criticising fascists for being fascists just because the fascist gun loving country they've helped create might use any excuse to shoot someone. Also, while we're on the subject of gun violence, there have been 527 mass shooting deaths in the USA so far this year, and if you picked any of those 527 victims at random, I would cheerfully and without hesitation swap them for any one of the predominantly Republican law makers who consistently refuse to pass legislation restricting the sale of firearms, because maybe if the violence was happening to them they'd feel it was worth taking action.

Trump being a threat to Democracy should not be a particularly controversial statement, unless you're particularly dedicated to the gimmick of enlightened centrism. He repeatedly refused to accept the result of an election, up to and including inciting a terrorist attack on the Capitol, he tried to convince his VP not to certify the election, he said that maybe his VP deserved to be murdered for not overthrowing the election, he said he'd be a dictator, (but only on day one!) he's repeatedly cosied up to and expressed admiration for dictators, including suggesting that maybe America should have a President for life like China has, he told people that after they voted him in they'd never have to vote again. I know for some reason you are relentlessly dedicated to giving Trump the benefit of the doubt that maybe his seemingly infinite bounty of statements that reveal what a corrupt, horrible person he is actually mean something else, but just once, why not listen to what he actually says, over and over and over again?

I think it'll be a little while yet before Republicans try to campaign on the subject of security at their rallies.

It can be simultaneously true that: 1. Donald Trump is the worse candidate for Palestine 2. Current Democrat policy needs to be better.

That's OK Bruce I wasn't really trying to start a new topic, I was just having a cheeky jab about your seemingly boundless enthusiasm for giving one of the worst human beings alive as much benefit of the doubt as you can possibly spare.