Can't wait to see how many downvotes I get for this - but I found it funny
I usually get annoyed how often it comes up but at least this one is creative / not the same rant again
Found the transphobic
I strongly disagree with the notion that you are transphobic if you don’t think biological men should compete in women’s sports. I very much support transgender rights and driving inclusion for them - but the current setup is not the right answer for how they should participate in sports
The trans April fools article is about as funny as a Ben Garrison political cartoon. I can deal with the COVID deniers, anti-vaxxers, white supremacists and other trolls on this website. But if boomer conservative "humor" is where this is going, Paolo knows where to find me.
Insulting an oppressed minority isn’t humor, it is bullying, overt fascism.
You're too dumb to understand that the humor of the post was not aimed at actual transgenders, but at idiots like you who predictably will get irrational and hysterical whenever someone challenges your ridiculous ideology.
Challenge what ideology? That we shouldn't support bigotry?
Very few people downvoting the article think Lia Thomas should be competing against women. So that can't be the ideology the article is challenging. What it's challenging is the wider social context of trans people being accepted and treated with respect. That's what this article is attacking, under the guise of April Fools.
Honestly, you guys are just straight up A-holes at this point.
(it's not April fools in my timezone yet, so I honestly mean that)
True^
Beyond new low! Unless they apologize, Letsrun should lose media access to major events and lose sponsors over its coverage of the trans athletes debate. This isn't educated discussion and debate, its hate speech. Its not helpful to their point of view. It doesn't make them look like men protecting women's athletics. It makes them look hateful and transphobic. You can be against trans athletes competing with cisgender women, without hating trans persons. Its clear letsrun hates trans people. Trans athletes in women's sports is real issue, but this is not helpful.
Honestly, you guys are just straight up A-holes at this point.
(it's not April fools in my timezone yet, so I honestly mean that)
Do you have the integrity to recognize this as the Post of the Week since it's on its way to 100+ upvotes in half a day? Or do you carefully curate those to make sure they align with your beliefs?
I am incredibly, incredibly worked up about this post, but I haven't had my coffee yet, so I don't know what I think. I just want to say that I am incredibly, incredibly opinionated about it. So there!
I don't understand the obsession the site owners have with this topic. It's not from an endearing love and respect for the sanctity of female athletics. It's something else, and it's getting weird and ugly. Thanks, brothers. I think my time at letsrun needs to be over.
We weren't out to win a popularity contest with the article.
That's never been the point with LetsRun. If so we'd never say anything critical about anything which actually is how some of the running media works.
As it's written now it's really directed to the people who will read it and think we're serious in the article. I'd say 80-90% of people understand once you discuss it with them that transgender women have an unfair advantage especially if they don't suppress their testosterone.
For an April Fools article there was a decent amount of internal debate on it. At one point it was pretty hilarious, but some felt the jokes were too much even though we had the wife of the most liberal member of our team laughing at one of them which never made it to print. At one point, some felt everything was tied too directly to Lia Thomas, who we have sympathy for as a person. So that angle and some of the jokes were removed. Perhaps we should have stuck with the humor angle as people who are going to be offended are going to be offended no matter what we wrote on this subject and humor sometimes is the best way to get a point across, but internally some were really against it so it came to be how it is now.
It's now more directed at someone who will read the article and believe it and then start wondering if we're serious.
Then there was talk of going to some headline like "Scientists Confirm That Going from 554 Place Competing Against Men to Winning National Title Does Not Constitute an Unfair Advantage." Perhaps could have that and the same article we have now but we were editing article after we had the piece framed as an editorial mea culpa.
For the record, I don't claim to have the answers for how to handle this issue in sport. What I do know is that joke articles like this do nothing to help with the discourse & open up the trans community to even more vitriol/hate. That's harmful & a few paragraphs trying to defend that shows your weakness & your tunnel vision in seeing this issue as strictly partisan.
There is no trans takeover of athletics. Lia Thomas was the only known trans swimmer in the NCAA & is now out of eligibility. She followed the rules & didn't break any records. You show your lack of knowledge on this issue in the way that you make it out to be a much bigger deal than it is. Again, I don't have the answers but every once and a while you get riled up about a successful trans athlete that right wing media wants you to get riled up about. It's the same nonsense that people buy into when they're told that the government is coming for their guns. It's scare tactics & leads to trans bashing instead of any meaningful conversation on the topic.
Stop doubling down on this stuff. Ya'll have an unhealthy obsession with this. You gave way too much attention to Caster Semenya & put any "article" from just right-wing "news" sources bashing trans athletes at the top of the home page every chance you get. It doesn't warrant the attention. Maybe governing bodies should get together & come up with something better but you're not simply making an argument about biological differences in the way you think you are. You're perpetuating trans hate. It's in poor taste. You show no ability to see the damage you cause to that community. Enough is enough.
I don't understand the obsession the site owners have with this topic. It's not from an endearing love and respect for the sanctity of female athletics. It's something else, and it's getting weird and ugly. Thanks, brothers. I think my time at letsrun needs to be over.
At one point it was pretty hilarious
I don't think I've ever read something I've believed less than this. April Fool's on this site is where comedy goes to die.
You're too dumb to understand that the humor of the post was not aimed at actual transgenders, but at idiots like you who predictably will get irrational and hysterical whenever someone challenges your ridiculous ideology.
Challenge what ideology? That we shouldn't support bigotry?
Very few people downvoting the article think Lia Thomas should be competing against women. So that can't be the ideology the article is challenging. What it's challenging is the wider social context of trans people being accepted and treated with respect. That's what this article is attacking, under the guise of April Fools.
"being accepted and treated with respect" sounds nice on its face, but there's always a more pernicious agenda that gets pushed under the guise of "respect and inclusion" through force by reputation destruction and social alienation. If your whole agenda stopped at the idea that people should be kind to transgenders, then there would be no argument because that's an idea that the vast majority of society agrees with.
Where conflict arises is when people advocate for pseudoscientific ideas about what men and women are, that men should compete with women in sports; that little kids should receive hormonal treatments, puberty blockers and surgeries which should also be enforced by the government against parents' wishes; that transgender treatments should be funded by taxpayer dollars. You can say you're doing this to be "respectful and inclusive" but you're creating more problems than you solve.
Not that any of this matters, because it seems like you in particular just seem to get off on calling other people bigots, probably because it makes you feel good about yourself by tearing others down.