March 22, 2022

"[T]he presumption of the policy... is that there is an existing problem... that requires further state government intervention."

Those are conservative words, spoken by Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, quoted in "Bucking Republican Trend, Indiana Governor Vetoes Transgender Sports Bill/Gov. Eric Holcomb nixed legislation that would have blocked transgender girls from playing school sports. Eleven states have enacted similar bills" (NYT). 

It's a basically conservative approach, and it's also politically wise. To pass this law would shift the attention to the new law — how it works awkwardly or has unintended consequences, the real individuals who feel the effects and deserve empathy, and what's wrong with the meanies who voted for it. 

To decline to legislate is to leave the problem in the hands of the authorities who run the sport, who will have to struggle to find solutions that will never be perfect and never free of criticism.

So, hooray for Holcomb.

76 comments:

Ann Althouse said...

Please comment on the substance of the post and the new material it raised.

Do not post to say things that commenters predictably say every time there is a post on the topic of transgenders. Notably, don't post just to say sex is real and it's about your chromosomes and genitals.

Readering said...

Veto override coming. Sadly.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

who deserves empathy?

Biological men who wish to be female?
Or females who wish compete with other females? (and not stronger biological men who wish to be females?)

Readering said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rhhardin said...

It ought to fall under enforcement of contracts, which is legitimate for state action.

The girls started the sport when it was for girls and now you change it on them.

Temujin said...

I'm sure it came down to his having eyes on a Congressional seat in the near future. Or a Senate seat? Gov. Holcomb is term limited in Indiana, so I'm sure his team went back and forth and came up with this approach. And the approach sounds nice, even Conservative, until some 6'5", 185 lb. former guy takes over some women's sport in Indiana (other than basketball) and has a cascading effect on the young women playing that sport.

Playing women's sports is not a civil right.

Lyle Sanford, RMT said...

Thanks for this - it's a tough problem, and fires people up so. This framing gets you to thinking about how to solve the problem, not to rant about it.

rcocean said...

Funny how all these supposedly Conservative "Red state" Governnors are vetoing any attempt to rein in Transgenders ruining women's sports. Did this Governor run on being a "social conservative"? I bet he did.

100-1 he's responding to pressure from the chamber of Commerce or some Big $Donor$. Republicans never vet their politicans properly and social conservatives have the attention span of a drunken flea, so this will soon be forgotten.

Lets get the Government off the backs of the Big woke corporations. LOL!

Ron Winkleheimer said...

In the real world we have a hulking (compared to his competitors) guy who has fully intact genitals and is attracted to women competing in the NCAA against female identifying females cause he says he "feels" like a woman and wears his air long and a little bit of makeup, which, as stated at ace.mu.nu, any member of Poison in the 80s could exceed. The fact of the matter is that this isn't sympathetic at all and is going to piss people off.

Achilles said...

It's a basically conservative approach, and it's also politically wise.

Now do Title 9.

Jake said...

To decline to legislate will result in the judiciary legislating.

Humperdink said...

Veto override coming. Thankfully.

stutefish said...

The wise thing to do would have been to legislate that the sports leagues are legally entitled to make such prohibitions, thus relieving them of the burden of spurious lawsuits if they do.

Michael K said...

Pence did the same thing with the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Conscientious objectors in the culture war,

MadisonMan said...

I agree that the solution to societal problems is not always The Government deciding. He's giving a great gift to the people who voted for the bill. I supposed they'll just override.
"Do Something About This" is how we got the bill about Year-round DST.

Milo Minderbinder said...

Title IX is still on the books....

Would it be discriminatory if the NCAA did not have separate mens and womens sports, i.e., simply one class open to all? I think not. And what fun....

Christopher B said...

By this logic, Goldwater's opposition to the CRA of 1964 was also principled conservatism.

tim maguire said...

There's nothing conservative about vetoing a bill regulating public schooling. But at the collegiate level, it is not the government's business who the NCAA does and does not allow to play women's sports. That's between the NCAA, its member schools, and student athletes.

Mattman26 said...

If I may quote from Ace:

These stupid f&%#ers don't understand that we are in an existential battle. The war is for the soul of America, and standing on some legalistic and childish principle is exactly how we lose these battles. It doesn't matter that currently there are no fake chicks competing in in high school sports in Indiana; the point is to send a message that Indiana and America will not tolerate the destruction of traditional culture and societal norms in service of the progressive goal of a socialist America.

To which I say, amen.

Christopher B said...

So, hooray for Goldwater.

n.n said...

Trans/neos, trans/quasis, trans/pseudos, trans/socials, too. Trans/homos and trans/bis are not effective. Trans/fluid, yesterday, today, tomorrow, and when it is [politically] congruent.

That said, perhaps weight classes. The karmic irony that with social progress, society will normalize the deprecation of women and girls as "burdens".

Rabel said...

"To decline to legislate is to leave the problem in the hands of the authorities who run the sport..."

Oh come on. The first time one of those "authorities" says "no" to a person claiming to be transgender the issue will go to court and it will be decided there.

Enigma said...

This is the reductio ad absurdum of, or heckler's veto over, women's Title IX sports. On some level it makes perfect sense. Any defense-of-biological-female lawsuits will be coming from a different type of leftist rather than this type of conservative. Interesting.

Women's sports were made viable and "a thing" with the Great Society efforts following the 1960s. It's now unclear whether they will endure, as both the league managers and half the female athletes seem fine with grossly uneven competition. Gross athletic differences typically result in fewer and fewer participants and viewers, as the winners are easily predicted.

"Research suggests that men aged 18-24 often run faster than children aged 4-6. News at 11:00."

Bring on more and more and more transgender females and watch league economics evolve or fully dissolve.

eddiejetson said...

"Eric Holcomb nixed legislation that would have blocked transgender girls from playing school sports."

This framing bugs me. It wouldn't have prevented transgender girls from playing school sports. They could compete in boys' sports all they want to.

PM said...

In my garage is a framed 1976 Nat'l Lampoon cover featuring a Soviet 'female' athlete with junk in her shorts. 46 years ago it was a joke, and today it still is in terms of which elected or appointed body should address it, and how.

gspencer said...

Getting government out of the way is the solution for so, so many problems. Let us alone and we citizens will figure it out.

gilbar said...

Ann Althouse said...
Please comment on the substance of the post and the new material it raised.

It's GOOD to see that the governor AND Prof Althouse think that Men's Rights supersede female rights

Afterall..
WHY do things BEFORE the house burns down? WAIT til everything is smoking ash THEN do fire prevention

Gilbert Pinfold said...

There is now women’s freestyle wrestling at the international/Olympic level, and 58 universities have NCAA women’s programs. Wait for it…

Birches said...

Vetoing the legislation is the cowards way out. We already know what the NCAA's view is and that is to not piss off the LGBT activists at the expense of women athletes.

NCAA is based in Indiana, so the money involved was too much to do the right thing. All rhetoric was found to support the decision that was already made.

Only Ron DeSantis has courage.

iowan2 said...

To decline to legislate is to leave the problem in the hands of the authorities who run the sport,

authorities?

This lands fully in the realm of legislative power.
We get all out of sorts if the administrative bureaucracy, makes rules that contradict the will of the people.

Our hosts comments yesterday, separated the difference between sex, the physical, vs gender, the feeling. Those things that are determinate by sex, must by handled that way. If the physical is not relative, then gender is great. When Authorities make a muck of something, the people need a solution. Legislation, not the courts, not the bureaucracy, is that solution.

Oh, btw, legislation barred no one from sports. Only prevented males from playing sports on girls teams, something, no one predicted would needed a line item explanation. Transgenders can play all the female sports provided.

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

Yes, yes, of course. The "conservative" answer is to always give way to the destruction of cultural norms by Fabian cultural Marxists, and invoke some mysterious "conservative" ideal while surrendering.

The use of government to protect the weak from the powerful is a conservative thing. Holcombe shows he is no conservative in his selective decline to use government power in the manner for which it is designed.

Maynard said...

I can see how this is a reasonable action by the Indiana Governor, but you have to apply the same logic to all sorts of legislation that has the government intervening where it shouldn't.

Deirdre Mundy said...

Ir makes sense to me --- The Indiana High School Athletics Association should be setting the policy, not the Governor.

And IHSAA, the committee that runs school sports, is a voluntary organization and not funded by state taxes.

"he Mission of the IHSAA
The IHSAA is a voluntary, not-for-profit organization that is self-supporting without the use of tax monies. Since its founding in 1903, the Association’s mission has been to provide wholesome, educational athletics for the secondary schools of Indiana. Its member high schools – public, institutional, parochial and private – pay no annual membership fee or incur entry fees to play in the Association’s tournaments. A state tournament series is conducted annually in 21 sports, 10 for girls, 10 for boys and one co-ed (unified track and field). An 19-person board of directors, elected by the member school principals, governs the organization.
"

https://www.ihsaa.org/About-IHSAA/Current-Information/History

I suspect if this law did go into force, it could be overturned in court. The state Government doesn't have a role here.

Gabriel said...

I think in the end, biological women who are losing scholarships to biological men will need to sue and win under Title IX.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

The girls/young women should line up for the event, then when the gun signals the start, just remain at the starting line. It's a rigged race. The only way to win is not to play. Just like the shell game. Then Will/Lea Thompson would look like a fool, racing himself without any other swimmer in the pool.

Chris Lopes said...

It was certainly the politically smart thing to do, but it doesn't actually solve the problem. The law was passed because those in charge of women's sports refused to act, despite the harm that is being done to biological women. I suppose if the harm gets severe enough (the US Olympic Women's teams consisting entirely of trans-women), they might be persuaded to act, but maybe not. In the meantime, while we are waiting for good to somehow triumph over evil, women and girls who have spent their lives training to be the best in their sport will end up being upstaged by some guy "identifying" as a woman but having the biological advantages of being a man.

Dave Begley said...

The fucking NCAA is behind this corrupt veto. The NCAA employs an army in Indianapolis and there are many well-paid Leftists there.

These horrible people just allowed Lia Thomas to compete against real women.

I wrote a hard copy letter this AM to Joni Comstock. No email address available on the NCAA site. I complained about how the NCAA forced the college basketball cheerleaders to mask up. What a disgrace.

The money the "adults" at the NCAA make off of the kids is an outrage.

Dave Begley said...

Ann:

The governor was lobbied by the rich NCAA not to disrupt the NCAA's political views. This is corruption.

I'm still mad about how the powerful NCAA wrecked the tournament for the defenseless cheerleaders.

mikee said...

Before you knock down a fence, try to understand why it was built. The governor is pushing the problem of sports and the rules of competition out of the hands of government, and back to the freely associating members of the public who participate.

The NCAA females who didn't like competing against a biological male could swim under a newly formed association of athletes which enforces DNA categories, if the NCAA continues to force them to compete against XY participants. Freedom of association, its a thing.

Gahrie said...

Now do Roe V Wade.

dbp said...

"It's a basically conservative approach, and it's also politically wise. To pass this law would shift the attention to the new law — how it works awkwardly or has unintended consequences, the real individuals who feel the effects and deserve empathy, and what's wrong with the meanies who voted for it."

It's conservative, in the sense that it conserves the status quo. There was no law which spelled-out, what would have seemed obvious a few years ago. But the status quo, isn't really the status quo. Biological men didn't use to get to compete against biological women just on the basis of identifying as a woman. The change was that the people in charge, to the dismay of the majority, decided to unilaterally undermine the entire basis for women's sports. The law would restore the, until recently, common understanding of why we have women's sports.

Mark said...

leave the problem in the hands of the authorities who run the sport

Well, if the authorities who run the sport are a private association, then by all means, they can do whatever they want.

But if the governor has public schools and public sports leagues in mind, then state government has ALREADY intervened.

Real American said...

"hooray for Holcomb"

Agreed. Fuck girls. Those little cunts don't deserve to play.

Mark said...

it is not the government's business who the NCAA does and does not allow to play women's sports

If public universities are involved, then it is not a private enterprise, even if those public taxpayer-funded universities have entered into some kind of arrangement with a quasi-public entity like NCAA that pretends that it is private.

Mark said...

The Indiana High School Athletics Association should be setting the policy, not the Governor.
And IHSAA, the committee that runs school sports, is a voluntary organization and not funded by state taxes.


The IHSAA can do whatever it wants. The Indiana state legislature can also absolutely pass a law that prohibits public schools from participating in competitions that violates women's rights and from associating with IHSAA or other schools that allow the same.

gadfly said...

When Governor Holcomb vetoed the Indiana transgender sports bill he approved Indiana's new "No-Permit Gun Carry Law" which says you don't need a permit to carry a gun strapped to your belt or tucked away in a shoulder holster.

There is, of course, irreconcilable physical issues with men competing against women in women's sports event venues which Holcomb and Althouse ignore.

But Holcomb goes a step further by seemingly determining that something may be bad afoot with gun carry permits. But then he stumbles through an explanation that he trusts Hoosiers to lawfully and responsibly carry a handgun. Obviously no one has been gunned down in all of Indiana's history. Next on the trust list perhaps is no crime for shooting and killing humans.

What was that excuse for his transgender sports veto again?

"[T]he presumption of the policy... is that there is an existing problem... that requires further state government intervention."

lane ranger said...

A transparent attempt to pass off leftist sensibilities as "conservative". The "conservation" in this equation is the attempt of the legislature to conserve girls sports in its traditional and legitimate form. "Conserving" the corruption of girls sports by allowing boys (who claim to think they are girls) to compete with girls is ridiculous on its face, and is no kind of conservatism.

Dave Begley said...

The economic power of the NCAA is considerable in IN. "Based in Indianapolis, IN, NCAA is a key player in the education industry with 3,165 employees and an annual revenue of $1.1B."

Creighton only has 719 professors and a total of 2,250 employees. Creighton is one of Omaha's biggest employers.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"nixed legislation that would have blocked transgender girls from playing school sports"

It does absolutely nothing of the kind. I expect weasly mischaracterizations from the NYT but I'm surprised Althouse let that one slide.

gadfly said...

Mark is correct about the IHSAA, which sponsors and schedules all secondary school competitions including 10 boys, 10 girls and two unified sports, flag football and track & field.

But what they cannot do is define the terms, "girls" and "boys."

Mattman26 said...

"The girls/young women should line up for the event, then when the gun signals the start, just remain at the starting line."

Now *that's* a women's sporting event I would pay to see!

Browndog said...

Libs went on a Title IX crusade to destroy men's athletic programs, now act like it doesn't exist.

Hubert the Infant said...

I do not understand the logic of saying that these people are female in all respects except when it comes to organized sports. You cannot be mostly pregnant, and you cannot be mostly female -- or mostly male. Ironically, the advocates for laws like this one are accepting the premise that somebody can be nonbinary in some ways and not in other ways. Or something like that.

Michael P said...

I forget: Do you have a tag for "better than nothing (is a high bar to clear)"? This seems like a perfect post for such a tag!

Joe Smith said...

'To decline to legislate is to leave the problem in the hands of the authorities who run the sport...'

You mean like the NCAA, or the Olympic Committee...one of the most corrupt organizations on earth?

They'll do the right thing...sure.

Btw, trans women CAN play sports. With the boys/mens team where they belong.

MikeD said...

The only fair resolution is for all competitive sports to create trans leagues. Boy to girls leagues and girl to boys leagues.

n.n said...

Libs went on a Title IX crusade to destroy men's athletic programs, now act like it doesn't exist.

They think that they can elect to abort the baby, cannibalize her profitable parts, sequester her carbon pollutants, and have her, too. Time will tell if there exists a consensus by choice, Choice, or force, or an emanation from a penumbra sweeps every principle and principal of human and civil rights, and Her choice(s), aside.

wildswan said...

Back in the 70's the East German Olympic woman's teams were successful due to a doping program which included male hormones and growth hormones which allowed the East German Women to develop superior strength. Those women who objected to the East German women and the obvious presence of a doping program were trashed - one was called Surly Shirley, others were called "ugly Americans." That was a term used in those days to mean "arrogant American supremacists." Looking at the East German Olympic women now when both the doping program and the damage it ultimately did to individual German women is acknowledged, it is said:
"The 1976 USA Women’s Olympic Team was right to cry foul. The USA team set nine American records at those Olympic Games only to see every record eclipsed by an East German swimmer riding high in the water from a systematic state-orchestrated drug program that claimed titles in 10 out of 11 individual races.

Race after race, the USA women were shocked and demoralized."
https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/dopings-darkest-hour-the-east-germans-and-the-1976-montreal-games/

So here's the question:
If male hormones were doping when given to women why are not female hormones doping when given to men? In both cases the object is the same - for athletes in women's sports to defeat other athletes by using male bodily strength. Women athletes only put up with it because they're a bunch of girls.

Narayanan said...

what is the societal construction of transgender XYZW [boy/girl man/woman] >>>
$$$ = beginning point of transing or end point?

Narayanan said...

mikee said...
Before you knock down a fence, try to understand why it was built. The governor is pushing the problem of sports and the rules of competition out of the hands of government, and back to the freely associating members of the public who participate.

The NCAA females who didn't like competing against a biological male could swim under a newly formed association of athletes which enforces DNA categories, if the NCAA continues to force them to compete against XY participants. Freedom of association, its a thing.
=====
NCAA ; anti-Trust etc.
can the new association automatically assume all such privilege?

Hey Skipper said...

@Gabriel: I think in the end, biological women who are losing scholarships to biological men will need to sue and win under Title IX.

You silly, obviously the answer is to take scholarships from the men.

[/sarc]

More seriously, you point directly at a glaring contradiction: if trans women are, in fact, women, then it would be a due process violation to not award an athletic scholarship to any number of Lia Thomases. However, that means awarding scholarships to people who may very well not have gotten them otherwise, meaning natal males are depriving natal females of the very athletic opportunities that that Title IX has in large part been responsible for creating.

Go ahead and square that circle, NCAA.

Deirdre Mundy said...

In terms of the state trying to ban schools from participating in sports unless the IHSAA changes the rules—- I am not sure or state government has that power. In Indiana a lot of power belongs to the local school boards and superintendents. For instance, that’s why there’s no statewide policy on homeschoolers participation in school sports. It’s all up to the local superintendent and school board.


I suspect the governor has a better idea of the limits of central power than the members of the statehouse do. Intervening here would set a bad precedent against local control, and local control is what allow schools in smaller districts to meet student needs differently than schools in Indy or Gary.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

MikeD mentions this above, but I want to highlight it: We are told over and over that sports are a valuable activity to those who participate in them, and that a MTF transsexual can't be disallowed that activity just because "she" will blow all the other swimmers out of the water (or insert any other sport as suits you).

But what about FTM transsexuals? Don't they also get to compete against their own gender? Well, in that recent Ivy League championship, two FTM swimmers did conspicuously medal. Competing against other men, right? No, silly, of course not. They also were competing against the women, not the (other) men.

Now, this is simply intractable. If (a big "if") MTF transsexuals are to compete against women, obviously FTMs must compete against men; anything else is unfair. But as it currently stands we have trans-men and trans-women both competing in what I'm forced to call the "kiddie pool," against cis-women. Disgusting that any athlete would willingly do such a thing, but obviously also internally inconsistent.

I support MikeD's solution, btw: There ought to be four separate tracks, not two, for any sport in which a clear male/female ability divide obviously exists. That would be nearly everything (dressage, marksmanship, maybe extreme-distance running, and a handful of other sports excepted). Are there not enough MTFs or FTMs? Just give it time. Look at how many there were twenty years ago, and how many there are now.

Tina Trent said...

You're confusing who is the aggressor here, Ann.

Hey Skipper said...

In related news, Idaho Republicans rejected a law prohibiting trans procedures on minors.

Something about parents being the ones best positioned to decide.

https://reason.com/2022/03/21/idaho-republican-senate-leaders-reject-anti-trans-fearmongering-bill/?utm_medium=email

Another old lawyer said...

Professor, do you agree with Justice Scalia's dissent (joined by Justice Thomas) in PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin? When that decision was released, I thought it clear that Scalia believed that the PGA should be the authority deciding what a person had to do in order to play in a PGA tournament. In that case, walk the course during play. However, because of the ADA, the Supreme Court decided that the federal gov't via legislation had decided that the PGA had to provide Casey with the reasonable accommodation of the use of a golf cart due to his disability because that accommodation would not 'fundamentally alter the nature' of the contest.

Obviously, this isn't an ADA situation (or at least that's not how it's being argued and analyzed), but if the federal gov't can impose the ADA to force accommodations from the PGA, why is declining to legislate an answer here a better approach? A view that the political position is a winner for the Republican governor here, who is almost certainly losing more voters than he can expect to gain with his veto? Or do you just admire what you see as a principled stand?

Would you favor modifying the ADA so that the requirements of participating in every sport are left in the hands of the authorities who run the sport, who will have to struggle to find solutions that will never be perfect and never free of criticism?

Me, I'd welcome a bit more free association.

Gospace said...

We don't need an amendment to declare marriage is between a man and a woman! That's obvious! It's the conservative position to take since there's no one pushing it! 4 years later Massachusetts judge rules- equal treatment under the law REQUIRES than a man and a man or a woman and a woman be allowed to marry! It's written RIGHT THERE IN THE CONSTITUTION! In the penumbras and invisible ink between the lines! Despite the fact that marriage had a definition up until that point of one of two things- one man one woman, or in history and some backward areas today- one man and several women. By the way, we don't need any stinking new laws to ban plural marriages between groups of people- that's the conservative position.

Right up until a Massachusetts (or Hawaii?) judge says- "It's right there in the Constitution? Why can't you ignorant hicks see it?

Followed by- Well it's obvious- if an 8 year old girl can determine she's a boy, she can certainly consent to sex. Why can't you ignorant hicks see it? And she can certainly marry that 60 year old!

The Godfather said...

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. They aren't "transgender GIRLS" or "transgender WOMEN". They are BOYS or MEN, and if they want to be/or "identify as" the other gender, call them "transgender boys" or "transgender men". Then decide, rationally, how such individuals should be treated in particular circumstances. So, if the head of some federal agency chooses to wear long hair and identify as a woman, that's fine with me, and I'll call her ma'am, and I'll criticize or praise her for what she does. But if a man decides he "identifies" as a "girl" so he can win a bunch of athletic trophies against girls who were born girls, no, that's just wrong.

Static Ping said...

Arguments like this is why the slippery slope "fallacy" is not a fallacy but a strategy. It all goes from "no one is arguing that" to "this is a solution looking for a problem" to, very suddenly, "haha, you trusted us and now we will punish you for this thing we said would never happen." The rubes have noticed and only the most naive accept this argument anymore. Those an people who want to be fooled.

The governor's position is explicitly he is for men competing in women's sports, but he wants to pretend he is being reasonable. The only question is whether he is on that side because he actually approves of men playing in women's sports, or because he is a slippery politician who wants to play the fence, or if he is more concerned with money. His explanation is bull**** and very obvious bull**** at that.

n.n said...

We don't need an amendment to declare marriage is between a man and a woman!

Civil unions for couples and couplets alike, and other arrangements to secure their legal coordination. There was no need to exercise liberal license and conflate Cult and State to mutate marriage in order to include trans/homosexuals.

Well it's obvious- if an 8 year old girl can determine she's a boy, she can certainly consent to sex.

Social progress will necessarily be disruptive, diverse, inclusive, abortive in the extreme, and should be handled with kid gloves.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

"[T]he presumption of the policy... is that there is an existing problem... that requires further state government intervention."
Those are conservative words, spoken by Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican


No, those are dishonest words, spoken by a lying hack.
Whenever someone who has a penis is allowed to compete in "women's" / "girl's" sports, or to go into "female spaces", there's a problem.

Since that is happening in Indiana, there is an existing problem that the law would fix.

Holcomb should be primaried out of office and never hold any office again for so long as he lives

Greg The Class Traitor said...

tim maguire said...
There's nothing conservative about vetoing a bill regulating public schooling. But at the collegiate level, it is not the government's business who the NCAA does and does not allow to play women's sports. That's between the NCAA, its member schools, and student athletes.

The State of Indiana funds some of teh NCAA's "member schools", which makes it the business of the State of Indiana

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Deirdre Mundy said...
Ir makes sense to me --- The Indiana High School Athletics Association should be setting the policy, not the Governor.
Does the Indiana High School Athletics Association fund all teh public high schools in the State of Indiana?
no

Does the State of Indiana fund those high schools?
Yes

Then, since "he who pays the piper, calls teh tune", it is clearly the correct place of teh State of Indiana to make the rules

Greg The Class Traitor said...

mikee said...
Before you knock down a fence, try to understand why it was built.
The fence is "women's sports". This trans bullshit in knocking it down

The NCAA females who didn't like competing against a biological male could swim under a newly formed association of athletes which enforces DNA categories, if the NCAA continues to force them to compete against XY participants. Freedom of association, its a thing.

Sure they can. then they can have their lives destroyed for being "anti-trans extremists"

but, they can't, because there will be no NCAA approval for such a "bigoted anti-trans" organization.

You can not have "freedom of association" and powerful leftists, because leftists are all totalitarian scum who allow no actual freedom

Thus we need the government to fight them.

John Fisher said...

Hypothetical question - Would it be 'conservative' for the legislature to simply withdraw all state funding from its institutions of higher education if said institutions allow transgender women to compete in women's sports? Why shouldn't the state, which is spending taxpayer money to fund these institutions, regulate this instead of some unelected non profit (in this case the NCAA)? I think so.

Bruce Hayden said...

“When Governor Holcomb vetoed the Indiana transgender sports bill he approved Indiana's new "No-Permit Gun Carry Law" which says you don't need a permit to carry a gun strapped to your belt or tucked away in a shoulder holster.”

“But Holcomb goes a step further by seemingly determining that something may be bad afoot with gun carry permits. But then he stumbles through an explanation that he trusts Hoosiers to lawfully and responsibly carry a handgun. Obviously no one has been gunned down in all of Indiana's history. Next on the trust list perhaps is no crime for shooting and killing humans.”

Normal left wing brain dead bloviating.

The right to self defense is an inherent inalienable right, of not only every human, but animals too. There are now, in many states, two groups of people: those who can possess and carry a firearm, and those who legally cannot. For the most part that means at least 18 with long guns and 21 with handguns, plus a clean record (no felonies, etc). Used to be a subcategory of the first - those who could carry concealed. Regardless, the regular laws still apply - murder is murder, self defense is self defense, etc. and left wing prosecutors are not shy about prosecuting even very obvious cases of self defense as murder (e.g. George Zimmerman, Kyle Rittenhouse). If you shoot and kill someone with your gun, you are eligible for criminal prosecution, unless you can show self defense, regardless of whether you were open carrying, carrying concealed, someone handed you the gun, etc. Doesn’t matter one single bit. If you do shoot someone, get caught, and cannot show self defense, then it is highly likely that you will lose your right to possess or carry a firearm, thereafter, whether you are carrying it openly or concealed, or even if it is locked in your gun safe at home.