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[scriver]

Regardless, we all agree it should be up to the sports organisations to decide who gets to play where, right, and not something politicians should make laws on?

[Frumple]

Eh, so long as it's not running into blatant discrimination or corruption issues, sure. Pretty definitely it shouldn't be up to a politician to force a sports organization to be less accepting about who it allows to compete.

[nenjin]

In general....I agree?

I'm trying to think of a situation where the government has a vested interest in it. There's two varieties. There's the obvious one: money. If the choices made by sporting organizations have a direct impact on the government's take, that's an argument for the involvement. (Whether it's a good argument is another story.)

The other one would be ensuring fairness if sporting bodies fail to do so. This one would be an overreach IMO. The government already does a fucking terrible job of ensuring fairness in compensation, safety and access for women in sports, because they leave that entirely up to the sporting bodies themselves. If the way women in sports have been treated wasn't enough for the government to get involved to ensure fairness already, it would be galling if they decided to get involved to ensure fairness purely because transgender athletes are involved.

So yeah, leave it up to the sporting bodies. I don't want the government any more involved in legislating against people's genitals than they already are.

[anewaname]

@Lord Shonus
When Russia took Crimea in 2014, they seized Ukraine's oil and gas rigs in the Black Sea... How much gas does Ukraine have?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This Oct 2020 article:
"Excluding Russia’s gas reserves in Asia, Ukraine today holds the second biggest known gas reserves in Europe. As of late 2019, known Ukrainian reserves amounted to 1.09 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, second only to Norway’s known resources of 1.53 trillion cubic meters. Yet, these enormous reserves of energy remain largely untapped. Today, Ukraine has a low annual reserve usage rate of about 2 percent. Moreover, more active exploration may yield previously undiscovered gas fields, which would further increase the overall volume of Ukraine’s deposits."

Probably, only a portion of this is in the Baltic Sea deposits, but someone where else I'd read that about 40% of their new verified reserves were from the new deposits.

This article refers to the Ukrainian Black Sea rigs that were seized during Crimea by Russia, article.[spoiler]
"It operates a total of 17 deposits offshore the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, including 11 deposits producing natural gas, four producing gas condensate and two deposits producing oil."

Romania is also accessing Black Sea gas deposits, they used western investors to complete their first gas rig in the Black Sea in 2021/2022 and they have plans for more:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A (Reuters article, Feb 2021). That article also refers to Romania switching from coal to natural gas to meet their EU target.

Romania is planning a second gas rig for 2026 according to this politician's statement EurActiv article. That politician is talking about an energy-independent Romania...

Is natural gas part of the EU's plan's for the next 30 years? Look at pipelines:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Yamal pipeline was not enough, so Russia/EU built Nord Stream, but that was not enough, so they built Nordstream 2 which finished last year but the certification was frozen this February because of the invasion.

Romania was switching from coal to natural gas, to meet their upcoming EU target (maybe for 2030?). There are about 6 EU countries still using significant coal: Poland, Romania, and 3 or 4 others in that eastern EU area. All of them will switch from coal to natural gas for their EU target, which is why Nord Stream 1 and 2 were built... the Yamal pipeline was not enough for Germany plus the eastern EU countries that were going to switch from coal to gas.

Russia didn't build these pipelines at their own expense, there are contracts that include penalties for breaking the contract and penalties for not delivering the goods and penalties for not buying the delivered goods. Germany planned to use natural gas for at least 30 years in great quantities, partly to replace the coal, partly to buy time to develop the renewable system they envisioned.

The pipeline contracts between EU and Russia are going to have a 20 or 30 year lifespans with overlapping renewal clauses ("in ten years we'll revise the needed amount and pricing for the next ten to twenty years"). If the EU gets another significant gas source (maybe a westernized Ukraine), the EU will be able to force Russia to lower the price and the quantity through competition with Ukraine.

Why Crimea happened when it did...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Putin is not really a Russian... he is a Soviet, raised by the USSR, schooled by the USSR, and trained by the USSR. The USSR, as a federal government, had many politicians from member-states who's families had wealth and political control.

Those families in Ukraine controlled who received paying jobs and who did not. Their politics are "if we're going to have a democracy then we'll control who wins through economic starvation and selective job creation, any leader we don't like will have a bad economy". But, old people die and some of their kids have western educations and new-politics. Their western friends propose the idea of reviewing Ukraine's fuels and they find many new deposits. A plan is made to gain political control so they can control who gets the gas profits. Putin knows that political control will be lost and his pro-russia supporters will be subverted by new jobs and new money, so he invades before his militia gets new jobs.

Some links to the EU's published 2019 energy graphs, showing what energy type and what country:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The EU's statistics website shows 2019 that 40% of EU energy comes from burning fossil fuel (here), 60% of that fuel is imported, and that Russia provides 40% of that (more eurostat reports), which means that about 10% of all EU energy was from Russian fossil fuel imports in 2019.

25% of total EU energy comes for about 100 nuclear plants. There are only 2 under construction in the EU.

And a eurostat statement about projected renewable energy usage:
"The share of renewable energy in energy consumption increased continuously between 2004 and 2019, from 9.6 % to 19.7 %. The Europe 2020 target is 20 % by 2020 and the Europe 2030 target is 32 % by 2030."

So, the EU is not going to phase out fossil fuels, they're going to phase out coal. Natural gas will be around for a while, maybe 30 years at significant volume then a lower amount afterwards.

[delphonso]

Nenjin, assuming your stance has evidence to back it up, banning trans athletes from their brackets won't solve the problem. You then have men forced to compete in the women's bracket, like that teen who already had HRT and was forced to wrestle in the women's bracket. I think he cracked an opponent's skull or something.

Yeah, it's obvious this shouldn't be a legislative thing. The sports organizing bodies (and more importantly, their athletes) should be the ones deciding.

[Chevaleresse]

i've always wondered what happens if a cis male is over levels naturally. do they put him on T-blockers until he's competition legal?

(the answer is no, of course. Think about that implication.)

[Vector]

i've always wondered what happens if a cis male is over levels naturally. do they put him on T-blockers until he's competition legal?

(the answer is no, of course. Think about that implication.)

I like this post.

While I sympathize with Trans-athletes, my sympathies lie more with natural women athletes.

We don't see female to male transgenders going into male sports and dominating.

OK: If you wanna talk about this openly and without the conversation being shut down, let's start by calling the "natural women" "cisgender women" and the "transgenders" "trans people."

I don't personally give a shit about the sports convo. Much like the furor about the tiny population of detransitioners or "transsexual predators" purportedly gaining access to women's restrooms, this is not it.


They're talking about making it a felony with a possible sentence of life imprisonment to give trans affirming care to your child in Idaho. Worse than molesting a child, I guess. Or killing someone.

[nenjin]

OK: If you wanna talk about this openly and without the conversation being shut down, let's start by calling the "natural women" "cisgender women" and the "transgenders" "trans people."

Fair, I don't have these conversations often. But I do feel the need to distinguish between what someone transitioned from, to, because it has implications for sports.

They're talking about making it a felony with a possible sentence of life imprisonment to give trans affirming care to your child in Idaho. Worse than molesting a child, I guess. Or killing someone.

I think it really depends, and I know you're not going to like that take. For example, there was a vegan family that fed their 2 year old nothing but potatoes because it agreed with their dietary beliefs. The kid got crazy sick due to nutrient deficiency and had to be hospitalized. The parents IIRC were charged with child endangerment. The child had no say in this process. They relied on the judgment of their parents.

So in the case where the parents believe or want their kid to transition....where does one draw the line? What if, and yes we're going to delve into hypotheticals, the child doesn't want trans affirming care but the parents insist? Is that still within their purview as parents to make that decision for their kid and have it be free from governmental interference? We rightly demonize parents who don't respect their child's wishes to be gay and try invasive psychological and drug therapy. We demonize parents (to a much lesser degree) who religiously indoctrinate their kids with crazy shit. As a society we draw limits or at least have opinions on parenting.

I'm sure the answer mostly is "no decent parent would disrespect their child's identity wishes by forcing them to be something they don't want to be." But we've seen that happen lots of places (outside of the trans discussion.) I'm just wondering where we should draw the line.

And obviously, making a law to single out trans-behavior is bigoted. There are already laws to govern child endangerment. But setting that aside and looking at all possible iterations of something, I think the question should be at least considered.

[Vector]

I have no problem with parents forcing a kid to transition being charged with child endangerment, but we already have laws for that. The suggested law is not closing a loophole, it is suggesting that ALL parents who give supportive and trans-affirming care, or who leave the state to do so, be charged with felonies and imprisoned for life.

The suggested law rests on the incorrect belief that only sick people are trans and that good parents will not have trans children, therefore no parent who was a good parent to start with would be cursed with a trans child, and furthermore that no trans person experiences real suffering from gender dysphoria that a good parent would feel a moral obligation to relieve.

I am sorry to inform you that these are not correct beliefs. Forty-one percent of adult trans people have attempted suicide but more than 95% of these made attempts as minors/very young adults. When we gain control over our own bodies as adults, our suicidality diminishes to be equal with the normal (cisgender) population. About 1% of people who attempt transition detransition and of these the overwhelming majority do so due to social pressure and abuse.


So I guess the question is, should a good parent risk a felony after their kid's first suicide attempt, or the second?

[Rolan7]

Oh dang kinda ninja'd by Vector

i've always wondered what happens if a cis male is over levels naturally. do they put him on T-blockers until he's competition legal?

(the answer is no, of course. Think about that implication.)

Whereas they did ban those Namibian runners (cis women) in the freakin Olympics.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57748135
Is it misogyny, racism, or transphobia?  Porque no los tres?

I guess we could let sports organizing bodies be any combination of the above and let the court of public opinion decide, but as a nation we mostly decided that certain kinds of discrimination shouldn't be legal.  Even for private companies or states.

It also doesn't address the issue in public high school and university sports, so we have to decide anyway.

Also also, this whole issue is 99% transphobic propaganda.  They want everyone talking about wrestlers whose bones are fraction thicker, so they can literally declare supportive parents "child abusers".  If we *have* to discuss trans issues then could we talk about that at least as much?  It's affecting far more people and it's literal gestapo inform-on-your-neighbors shit, and government employees are getting fired over it.  Young vulnerable people are experiencing extreme hormone shifts due to withheld medication.

Yes reasonable people can disagree about trans people in sports, that's fine, but isn't it more interesting to question the consequences of an order like Governor Abbot's?  It's in Texas courts now but he did so much damage already, and it's not just Texas.  Will he face any consequences whatsoever?  I'm talking politically - from what I'm seeing his extra-judicial "instruction" has only improved his polling despite being a blatant overreach.  So from his perspective it was a very good move.  Where's the check and balance, there?  What recourse do people have if they're unfortunate enough to live in such a state?

Predit: And Idaho too, yeah.  They always attempt this stuff in several states.  They're very coordinated.

[Rolan7]

I think it really depends, and I know you're not going to like that take. For example, there was a vegan family that fed their 2 year old nothing but potatoes because it agreed with their dietary beliefs. The kid got crazy sick due to nutrient deficiency and had to be hospitalized. The parents IIRC were charged with child endangerment. The child had no say in this process. They relied on the judgment of their parents.

So in the case where the parents believe or want their kid to transition....where does one draw the line? What if, and yes we're going to delve into hypotheticals, the child doesn't want trans affirming care but the parents insist? Is that still within their purview as parents to make that decision for their kid and have it be free from governmental interference? We rightly demonize parents who don't respect their child's wishes to be gay and try invasive psychological and drug therapy. We demonize parents (to a much lesser degree) who religiously indoctrinate their kids with crazy shit. As a society we draw limits or at least have opinions on parenting.

I'm sure the answer mostly is "no decent parent would disrespect their child's identity wishes by forcing them to be something they don't want to be." But we've seen that happen lots of places (outside of the trans discussion.) I'm just wondering where we should draw the line.

And obviously, making a law to single out trans-behavior is bigoted. There are already laws to govern child endangerment. But setting that aside and looking at all possible iterations of something, I think the question should be at least considered.

The reality is already stacked strongly against forcing HRT on children.  The process involves psychological screening of the patient, who must be at least 18 years old (16 with parental consent), and it can be a struggle to convince the doctor that they're really trans.  "I'm not trans, I don't want this" would be a heck of a red flag.

You're fairly pointing out how vulnerable children can be to parental indoctrination on other issues, and I agree... it's really tricky.  My counterpoint is that a cis child indoctrinated into seeking HRT is exactly as tragic as a trans child indoctrinated out of HRT.  It's still bad, but we can minimize overall harm by accepting some very fringe cases.

[Starver]

OK: If you wanna talk about this openly and without the conversation being shut down, let's start by calling the "natural women" "cisgender women" and the "transgenders" "trans people."

Fair, I don't have these conversations often. But I do feel the need to distinguish between what someone transitioned from, to, because it has implications for sports.

Already distinguished. In your basic (Cis/Trans)-(Male/Female) type of terminology, the latter shows the "to", i.e. who they are at the moment, and the former indicates if the "from" was ever otherwise. Which might include some complications like 'wrongly-/prematurely-typed' Intersex individuals, in rare instances, so they always were (say) female but medically+socially grew up male, for whatever reason.

[nenjin]

So I guess the question is, should a good parent risk a felony after their kid's first suicide attempt, or the second?

I don't have an answer to this. But I would offer up the idea that maybe it isn't strictly related to their gender identity. That, perhaps maybe, they just have suicidal tendencies and believe that addressing their gender identity is the way to alleviate that. We need longitudinal studies that can show freely being able to adopt the gender of their choice alleviates suicidal ideation.

I have a friend who takes the position you've described: that being transgender is a form of mental illness, and he points to the rates of suicide as an example of that. I take real exception to that. I don't think mental illness and being transgender are 1:1. But I would be interested to know if being freely transgender actually alleviates suicidal ideation, or if it continues on in some form. Maybe this data exists, I don't know.

[Vector]

So I guess the question is, should a good parent risk a felony after their kid's first suicide attempt, or the second?

I don't have an answer to this. But I would offer up the idea that maybe it isn't strictly related to their gender identity. That, perhaps maybe, they just have suicidal tendencies and believe that addressing their gender identity is the way to alleviate that. We need longitudinal studies that can show freely being able to adopt the gender of their choice alleviates suicidal ideation.

I have a friend who takes the position you've described: that being transgender is a form of mental illness, and he points to the rates of suicide as an example of that. I take real exception to that. I don't think mental illness and being transgender are 1:1. But I would be interested to know if being freely transgender actually alleviates suicidal ideation, or if it continues on in some form. Maybe this data exists, I don't know.

With respect, the data exists and the longitudinal studies have been performed. I referenced those studies when I talked about the 41% suicide attempt rate and that suicidality disappears when trans people are able to socially transition. These studies are part of why being trans is no longer classified as a mental illness under the APA and the data is freely available on the English Wikipedia article about trans people, which is where I learned about this information.

[nenjin]

If you've got some links I would take them. If only so the next time I have to hear shit from someone about this, I can provide them so they'll STFU. I'm not going to say I'm totally comfortable with the way the discussion in America is playing out about transgenders, from either side. But I'll be damned if I'm going to let someone label someone else as mentally ill because they simply don't like their lifestyle, and a lifestyle that generally has fuck all to do with the offended person. That's largely how I see discussions about forcing transitions on kids, or transgender women in the women's bathroom and all the pearl clutching over it....it's really just cisgendered people's attempt to make someone else's decision relevant to their own life so they can object to it.