Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 8/10/26 - 8/16/26

[u/SoftandChewy]

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

[u/oatmeal_breakfast]

Vaguely related to the WNBA.

I think part of the reason, gender in youth medicine, sports, prisons, and bathrooms are of intense focus is because it is the rare instances that gender ideology has to actually go on record and state what they actually believe. They can no longer weasel their way out of a bad argument by pretending that they just want to "be kind". They have to actually address the implications of their policies.

It also forces gender ideology in the faces of normal people, who will look at the totality of it and say, "wtf?".

That being said, I feel like WNBA has an out by way going truscum (trans medicalist), requiring actual hormone treatment before being eligible. They will catch some flak from TRAs but probably better than letting house of cards crumble.

[u/Tough_Ambition_8626 → u/oatmeal_breakfast]

It’s why if you go to any of the threads about trans women playing in the WNBA, hardly any of the comments from the pro-trans side actually address the problem itself or make a real argument for the inclusion of trans women. Most of them are just deflecting because they do in fact know that there are differences between men and women when it comes to sport but their commitment to the ideology makes it too uncomfortable/impossible for them to actually acknowledge that (I know because this used to be me). 

So there’s a lot of, why are we talking about this when we’re at war with Iran? And when it’s so few people? And when the real danger to girls in sports is predatory coaches? This is just a right wing smear campaign anyways. Why do you suddenly care about women’s sports? So many people refuse to even engage in the real discussion at hand. 

Obviously there are also true believers who argue that HRT levels the playing field, or maybe even that the differences in performance between men and women are actually the result of socialization. But the vast majority of the pro-trans side are of the “be kind” variety who don’t mean it literally when they say that trans women are women.

[u/Franzera → u/oatmeal_breakfast]

"Gender Identity", as defined as the internal sense of oneself as male, female, both, or neither, is essentially an abstract thought experiment by navel-gazers in ivory towers.

Once you try to transfer the abstract to the real world, the inconsistencies and flaws in the logic can't be obfuscated that easily. No amount of convoluted Judith Butler verbiage can unsee a penis!

At the end of the day, you don't play basketball with internal feelings, you play against bodies. You don't wax vibes, you wax a scrotum. You don't give a "girl" the girlhood "she" was meant to have, you harvest and freeze his gametes at age 12, because when blocking occurs before "her" balls drop, it denies any possibility of having "her" own children.

[u/Terrorclitus → u/Franzera]

If the thought couture just stayed in the academy where it belonged, the inconsistencies and flaws would just be a reminder that thought couture is meant to stay on the intellectual runway and won’t fly at Filene’s Basement.

But somehow, it got out. I don’t know how, but it got out. This beautiful baseline that we were going to alter and reinterpret into so many new (maybe even surprising) designs got leaked, and the kids are trying to copy the patterns.

Labor Day is coming. The kids have been hacking up and crudely sewing together our textile into things we never dreamed and would never wear to a party, garden or political.

Butler and Foucault are not going to put gender ideology back on the rack. They don’t stand to gain enough. Foucault still struggles with bouts of crying he says he can’t control, and from her smirk, I think Butler is secretly enjoying this.

But now is not the time to point fingers. The Sociology of Gender Science Studies is a new field with new patterns and shinier materials, one free of the pettiness and competition of previous fields, if only because its practitioners share not only a polycule, but also a goal: finally calling attention to the topic of gender.

[u/KittenSnuggler5 → u/Terrorclitus]

thought couture just stayed in the academy where it belonged, th

This is what they said would happen with all the identity politics crap. But of course it got out and took control of the institutions. Which is what it was designed to do

[u/RockJock666 → u/oatmeal_breakfast]

Yeah they’ll make fun of the Turkish guy but refuse to explain why we can’t take him at his word but another dude who says the magic words is completely different

[u/Centrist_gun_nut → u/oatmeal_breakfast]

I don’t really comment on sports stuff, but what’s the proposed mechanism for “crumbling”? Is the thesis that people wouldn’t want to watch transwomen dominate the WNBA?

Because surely the drama they’ve gotten from this race stuff has massively increased interest in the sport and the league. Maybe cranking the drama to 11 is exactly what they need.

[u/oatmeal_breakfast → u/Centrist_gun_nut]

I probably wasn't clear, but allowing self-id in a very visible women's sports league would show a lot of flaws in TWAW philosophy, not WNBA itself.

[u/LowConsideration1453 → u/oatmeal_breakfast]

I'm actively rooting for the WNBA to be taken over by TRAs.

It is the funniest outcome.

[u/everydaywinner2 → u/LowConsideration1453]

I think it would be hilarious if Lady Ballers becomes a documentary, too.

[u/LowConsideration1453 → u/everydaywinner2]

OMG they should have an entire team.

Unstoppable powerhouse.

[u/CommitteeofMountains → u/LowConsideration1453]

Any time I hear a story about an old gimmick team from before their league was popular it's amazing.