(03-13-2018 01:15 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  Understand that the lack of consensus and respect for a certain community is precisely how we got here. And why this might get worse moving forward.

The ability of LGBT persons to participate in college athletics might not be important to you, or to the people who largely run collegiate athletics....but it is important to a sizeable portion of the owners of some of these programs (the taxpayers). This is what happens when straight/cis people 'decide' what is acceptable for LGBT people , without the input of the targeted minority (e.g., LGBT people). None of the bathroom bills (or the Mississippi HB 1523, which authorizes wholescale discrimination in healthcare and public accommodations) took into account any concerns of the LGBT community.

So the LGBT community is going to use the levers open to them. They could care less about where CSUB plays basketball, or if they play basketball at all. Or where or if SDSU plays football. And that's the problem of those programs too. The only interaction the LGBT community has with those programs is usually at the receiving end of a big fat bill to pay for programs that largely (or completely) exclude them. The smart move would be for programs to ramp up LGBT inclusion (most have 0% inclusion and have never had any inclusion).

I didn't say it was unimportant. What I said is these "you must ban them from the bathrooms" and "you must let them in the bathroom of their choice" and if you don't agree with me we are at war things are flat out stupid.

The numbers are VERY SMALL. Maybe 1 or 2 kids in a typical HS of 2000 or so kids, and those participating in sports even smaller.

Forcing a decision on any issue without broad consensus is flat out stupid. I think bathroom inclusion and bathroom ban bills are stupid. We have not figured out as a culture how we want to deal with it. So we should leave a lot of space to allow innovation and various alternatives to figure this out.

Look it would be best if we did not sexualize breasts so much, and the bathroom in general. Japan prior to American and Western cultural pressure, basically had public baths (which were also bathrooms) with mixed genders without the sexual interaction. So that showed it was possible to have culture that did not have sex associated with the bathroom. Of course that is dead in Japan for a couple generations.

And the trend line worldwide, especially with Muslim pressure (Europe and Australia) is toward stronger gender separation. It's hard not to notice that in the UK or France (topless sunbathing is basically gone and the fight is over whether to allow Burkinis or not while there is growing pressure to gender segregate grows). The US will be very much alone in a couple decades.

I mostly think it's much about nothing on both sides. It's ideological rather than practical. Rigid rules for bathrooms make no sense, either for inclusion or exclusion. Morals change all the time.

It's like the issue in the military. I think it's fine to not accept transgender, because the cost of surgery is very high, and the out of action time very long. It makes no sense in a typical 4 year contract. And it has no impact on recruiting. I laughed at the protests in San Francisco, and asked the organizers a simple question (including two I am friends with in the media), "how many of the Bay Area transgender went to the recruiting office to sign up for the military" ... the answer was zero, "it's the principle." No it's not, politics is about the practical, not the esoteric. Religion and philosophy are for the esoteric.

My basic point is such bills both "inclusive" and "exclusive" are not meant to have a conversation, they are meant to be a club to beat your opponents over the head with. They are fascist. I say that about both the California and Texas bills. Both are fascist clubs.