Good.
Is that those people are encouraging further extremes by the logic of one-upping others and encouraging there to be always more and something else to fight for. Another frontier to push, another norm to shatter, and so on, so they can always keep their position of being a 'good guy activist'. They don't usually care about the issues, just about the social cred as Bob points out.
And business has become very good at encouraging people into this mindset of the highly public actvist (Though often restricted to just social media or a small internet forum/server). That's how they sell products, you only need to put out the right message for them and they'll spread it to everyone with the same opinion for the social cred- Free advertising just for having a product say the right thing, and plenty of people willing to spend money on it to show their support for the movement.
I feel like the logical result of supporting transgenders in sports was always going to be opening up each sport to universal competition. It is true that right now, doing anything (no matter how well-intended) to women or the lgbtq+ to restrict certain things is going to invite a negative response and aggressive retaliation. We just came off a recent event where a bunch of angry rednecks blasted through a government building with malicious intent because their bloated hog
The problem with pushing forward all the time is, as we've seen in Maoist China and Stalinist USSR, there is going to be parts of the movement who will be concerned about the intent of those pushing. All movements have their "bad eggs" who need the more restrained elements to reel them back in. Of course, as XSI pointed out, those pushers also tend to have made their investment in tangible displays of support, meaning you either sided with them and wear the beret, or you're not a true supporter and must be shunned.
WOTC did display of tokenism last year that blue up in their face, so token gestures are being called out for what they are, I hope. There is a bit less tolerance towards token gestures and paying lip-service, though it's still hit and miss whether the less-reactionary forces will step up to call it out. That BK thing makes me shake my head, though. I know the intent is well-meaning, but goddamn, guys.
Theoretically speaking, in many cases men's sports are already open to everyone. It's just that biologically female would-be competitors aren't competitive(chess and e-sports being the most notable exceptions - Scarlet even won the world championship in Starcraft 2 a few years ago). There's only the slight problem of "what counts as doping?" Testosterone is on the banned list, which makes things tricky for FtM competitors.
The solution is complicated as Hell, that's for sure. Do we ban MtF participants from female leagues? What about FtM participants who want in on the male category, but their pre-op gender is the most pronounced? Do we allow a bit of doping as long as it's only for transitioning purposes? Do we have a soft ban on athletes who are undergoing the process for x amount of years?
this kind of rhetoric, where one or a dozen intolerant persons make up fantasy scenarios to justify their "righteous" indignation at something most of us are fine with. Because when we take the most extreme, circumstantial situations and present them as an overwhelming absolute, it sets us all back 20 years. So, the question then becomes, do we have the discussion exclusive to the affected group(s) and not open it to the general public? Or, do we open it up, and allow people who want to use bad faith rhetoric as a means to dissuade any further dialogue?
Banning MtF participants from female leagues seems like a nobrainer. As slicer points out, anyone who has undergone puberty as a male will have a significant advantage over women no different than doping(albeit harder to prove malicious). What should or should not count as doping for FtM athletes is a more complicated question, but like I said, it's not like they're likely to be very competitive anyway, so...
Don't forget
I mean, that's a fair point to be making. I think it doesn't really work out to outright act to prevent, nor is it a good look to do nothing and then end up with egg on your face. Something about being fooled twice, and whatnot.
I'm not even surprised that Pfizer is doing this, or that someone decided this was the straw that broke the camel's back for someone, and they wanted to expose it. What does surprise me is that the guys who put together the vaccine seem to be okay with this. I mean, how hard would it be for those guys to refuse to work and then collectively go to the local news and the competition and expose that shit? Ethics be damned when a dollar is to be made, I guess.
I would argue if you're a male transitioning to female, depending on where you are in the process, your advantage might not even be that significant. There are also arguments to be made for women who can simply out-speed men. I agree that what qualifies also becomes complicated, and should be left to a "x amount after x years" limit. It's harsh, but there cannot be progress without technology-based limits. As soon as we have Star Trek tech to alter appearance and physiology, we can discuss next-day competing and regulations relating to that kind of thing.
I mean, doping in general is fairly common (unfortunately),. My main contention is taking exceptions like some prison scum pretending to be chicks, or what Russia and China have done, and saying that's the overall norm and you can't trust a transsexual, as Slicer was implying. You might as well stop respecting their autonomy at that point, because you've lumped the whole in with people who were abusing a system and never had any sincere intent behind their claims. I think that's the kind of red-hatter bullshit we have to make a decision on whether to tolerate or not before any serious discussions can even be had.