Was she swimming against 5 trans swimmers or does she just suck?
She tied with a trans swimmer for 5th place. During the ceremony, they didn’t have two 5th places trophies so they had one hold 5th and one hold 6th. She held the 6th and threw a fit about it.
Cardio sports such as swimming and running are actually more difficult for transgender women Strength based sports tend to be easier for them.
I really encourage people to watch the Last Week Tonight segment on trans sports. It’s really good and it specifically calls out this exact incident.
My favorite part is when trump says he could beat her in a race.
she looks like she just got a massive whiff of his diaper in the same moment she got hella insulted
We knew he couldn’t help himself at the opportunity for more sexual assault, but damn guy, during a race?
the ultimate humiliation.
HAHAHA SHOTS FIRED all around!!!
Look at the pic. She knows.
Why are they getting a trophy for 5th and 6th? Is that normal for swimming.
I mean getting 5th place in the division 1 NCAA national championship is actually very impressive. People acting like she was a bad athlete because she got 5th place is crazy.
Yes shes no doubt a good swimmer, I’ve just never seen a 5th place trophy.
Pretty normal thing for a national tournament.
I think it was an NCAA Championship event, but I don’t know much about swimming competitions.
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She just sucks, and instead of trying to improve herself decided to hop on the conservative hate train to attack the trans woman. The three top spots were all cis women.
It’s one of the most stereotypically conservative / republican grievances I’ve ever heard.
It’s not the people at the top keeping the actual glory and/or money that are the problem. And it’s not that you suck. The problem that other rando who is just a bit more disadvantaged in life than you but who is about to catch up to the amount of stuff you have!
Dead on. But I mean, hey- you’ve got to pick the bad-faith arguments you can win, right?
It’s not only attacking one of the most vulnerable demographics in the country, but it’s attacking one of the most vulnerable demographics in the country over the most pettiest bullshit I can imagine. She’s upset because she didn’t get 5th place.
It’s not even that; she got fifth place. She’s upset that she had to share fifth place with a trans woman. I also feel the need to point out that it was her last competitive event, so it’s not exactly like competitive swimming is a vital component of her life that she kept doing moving forward. She’s just a vile, terrible person who realized she could make a career as a right-wing grifter.
She’s upset because she didn’t get 5th place.
It’s worse than that: she did get 5th place.
In March 2022, while swimming for the University of Kentucky in the 200-yard freestyle at the NCAA championship (her final competitive event race), Gaines tied for fifth place with University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, who subsequently became the first openly trans woman champion in the NCAA women’s division after winning the 500-yard freestyle later at the same meet. While Thomas held the fifth-place trophy after the finish, Gaines held an equally-sized sixth-place trophy while waiting for another fifth-place trophy in the mail.
Oh my got she got a participation trophy for throwing a fit and still is upset about it?
Whi h she genuinely lost, but it was close enough the judges had to check slow-motion, so she was wronged.
She was beaten by four cis women for sure and one trans woman by a split second, who the judges had to check photo-finish for fifty place (gains placed sixth)
She just sucked really, really hard. And why is it always 5th place? The girl who said she lost to a transgender runner a few years ago didn’t make it 2nd or 3rd… but also 5th (or maybe 6th). So even if those runners weren’t there. She still would have gotten nothing.
She just sucks.
*sixth
I read that at first like “filth”.
She was that long before stepping into the water.
More recently, in a House hearing on a Republican bill to ban trans people from sports, Ocasio-Cortez delivered a searing rebuke: “Republicans, who have voted consistently against the Violence Against Women Act, who have taken the rights of all women to have control over their own body, who as women are bleeding out in parking lots, now want to pretend today that they care about women. And why? To open up genital inspection on little girls across this country in the name of attacking trans girls. We have two words. Not today.”
Nailed it
Mentioning the genital inspections of little girls while this whole Epstein files debate happens seems prescient.
What Epstein file debate? Seems just about everyone moved on, as planned…
Moved on?
The house is out of session, and speaker Johnson is refusing to swear in representative-elect Grijalva who would be the last vote needed to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files.
To open up genital inspection on little girls across this country in the name of attacking trans girls.
Has any actual proposal actually called for this? The closest I’ve seen is essentially a note from your doctor.
What does the note say? How does the doctor make the determination that you’re a “woman”?
They hold the gender pendulum over your groin to see whether it swings in a manly arc or a feminine circle.
The proposals I’ve seen for school sports have typically not specified that. Just that affirmation by a medical professional was sufficient. What I haven’t seen is any actual proposal demanding the schools perform genital inspections. I’d love to be proven wrong with an example so I can properly join the outrage but until then it’s exaggerating what they’re trying.
What if the doctor’s trans-affirming and gives a trans woman a certificate of womanhood or whatever? Are they just going to accept that? I doubt it. If these people had any respect for science we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
That’s a good question. First, you’d need to find a doctor that’s willing to sign off that a trans girl is of the female sex, rather than that she identifies as a girl. And the fundamental argument they’ll make here is going to be that girl’s sports are a protected space for female athletes under Title IX, and that Title IX is specifically about sex, not about gender identity, therefore they can restrict who is allowed to play by sex rather than gender identity.
Not wanting to get caught in Title IX is also why they don’t place any similar requirements on boy’s sports, because current interpretations of Title IX (that go back to at least Obama if not further) require allowing female students to play on a boy’s team, but don’t require allowing male students to play on a girl’s team even if there is no boy’s team for that sport. And yes, that is a weirdly discriminatory interpretation of a law that bans sex discrimination in federally funded educational programs, but it’s the one the federal government has stood by for a long time).
Our future president
Take down Trump the tyrant.
It won’t really matter what she says, because republicans won’t hear this argument. They live in a different online reality than we do.
Will the transphobic @[email protected] hear it or will they need to be removed as admin?
Can what they live in be considered reality?
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When analyzing communication, it’s worth examining who the intended audience is. I do not believe it was Republicans.
It’s amazing, the stupid shit that having hundreds of thousands of people praising you can get you to believe.
Like how Riley Gaines was ever a good athlete.
I mean placing 5th in the division 1 NCAA championship is pretty damn impressive…
Riley Gaines is the biggest loser ever!
Gaines? Moar liek Losses, amirite?
Stop! Stop! She’s already dead! 😢
She ain’t in the ground yet…
Keep going.
Riley needs to be in tatters!
damm.
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doing “get behind me, Mr. President!” for 5th place swimmer
What the fuck?
Meh. I love me some AOC, but this dig feels a little beneath her. I’m all good with attacking people’s personal failings, but where one places in a sports competition doesn’t really fit that. I’m honestly a little disappointed. Hopefully, this is just a minor aberration, and she gets back into form.
where Gaines placed in a sports competition is precisely relevant and needed to be pointed out. perhaps you’re suggesting the way it was done could have been more polite?
but… why? when they are actively seeking out eradication why do you insist that being polite about facts is important?
5th place in the NCAA national championship? Yeah that’s still quite an accomplishment. It is impressive.
sigh For the umpteenth time, because actually being right about what you’re claiming to be right about matters. Even if they blamed their crappy showing on a trans competitor, the only thing that should be attacked is the shifting of responsibility, not the physical prowess.
I admit that interpretation a matter of perspective, but I don’t feel the fact that’s how it came off to me is irrelevant because it’s unlikely I’d be the only one to see that. Even if it were, it certainly doesn’t rate the absolute level of vitriol I’ve received here.
AOC is right and that quip does attack the shifting of responsibility.
In one simple statement AOC pointed out that Riley wouldn’t have won the race she used to build her anti-trans platform. The swimmer has been careful to present herself as a champion, when in reality she started her campaign after tying for fifth place with a trans woman.
Fair enough. The fact I’m personally uncomfortable involving someone’s physical abilities in a rebuttal to a shitty take - even though said take revolved around such - doesn’t mean it’s necessarily wrong. I fear it could be misconstrued (deliberately or not) as attacking the body, not the person - something I am afraid could be used to diminish the strength of our arguments against such crap, but I’ll agree that’s also probably a matter of interpretation.
If someone doesn’t know what the issue is about, why does their opinion matter?
This is the internet, literally anything can be misconstrued. Someone on here called me a nazi yesterday. If you check my modlog I was banned from a community for fascism.
Criticizing a valid, informed statement about an issue that’s challenging people’s identities because of how it might appear is like clutching pearls while your house is on fire.
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Her whole schtick was how a trans athlete made her a victim by usurping her natural, deserved finish position. AOC’s dig lays bare that she wasn’t even destined for the podium and that her elevated position in the speaking circuit is predicated on obfuscation, omissions, and willful ignorance.
This very well could’ve been the first time someone learned the underlying truth about this grifter.
shes mad that she was beaten by a trans person at 5th place, and not the other 4 cis woman.
I admit I’d never heard of this person before this post, but I still feel like going after their physical performance was sinking to their level. Even if they did do it first, it just doesn’t feel right.
Maybe it’s just me.
Why? Physical performance is not that limited, it’s not like she’s not capable of doing any better and she’d dunking on her, there is almost always more you can push yourself, she could spend more time in the gym, tweak her supplements, train harder, this is something elite athletes do. You know what elite athletes don’t do? Blame other people.
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The point is that they wouldn’t have won if there wasn’t a trans person competing. They would, at most, get fourth place. AOC was considerably diminishing the feeling of injustice (in comparison to not getting first place).
It’s even sillier than that. They tied for fifth place. If there wasn’t a trans person competing, they would have gotten fifth place, anyway.
The left is always expected not to “sink to their level” and look where that has gotten us. The entire world is lied to, constantly, right-wing politicians are also constantly making claims about left-wing ones being nut jobs, being communist, being terrorists.
Right-wing people make claims like, being trans is a mental illness, or that trans people are dangerous, or that trans people are pretending to be trans to compete in womens sports.
The minute a left-wing politician stands up and says: “You are a fucking asshole” they are held to a higher standard. It HAS to stop. We HAVE to be able to talk back. If we keep being polite and taking the higher road, they will continue to RAILROAD us, because the forceful and outspoken seem to win the narrative.
Case in point: If AOC had said something nice and polite here, we wouldn’t be reading it.
Nowhere did I say AOC had to be “nice and polite.” My point has been to make sure we attack strictly the things that deserve attacking (i.e. the attitude & blame-shifting, not the physical performance), or our arguments will wind up being no better than theirs, and just as easily dismissed.
I’m sorry since when is athletic performance something we can’t criticize? That’s such a bizarre statement. I can’t imagine how on Earth you came to the conclusion that someone’s actions cannot be criticized.
It’s understandable to not criticise or rank the athletic performance of someone just going to the gym for their own health, but in this situation we’re straight up talking about a person who specifically chose that their whole career is to have their athletic performance ranked and criticised.
Seriously? We’re in a trans community, and you’re saying it’s cool to criticize physical aspects of a person over which they only have so much control? You’re conflating someone’s choice of actions with their physical limitations. Sickening.
Mind blown. I’m done here for now. Good night.
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He didn’t name himself something that it seems obvious he isn’t…
Again you keep saying physical aspects as if someone’s athletic performance is something they’re born with. A person’s performance on a field of play or what have you is not something they’re given at Birth. It’s an extremely ignorant thing to say. Those four swimmers that beat her didn’t beat her because they were predestined to, they beat her because they put in the work. They beat her because they had the mental drive and physical dedication to work harder than she did. Maybe if she didn’t spend so much time thinking about how much she hated transsexual people how much she wanted them exterminated and how easy it would be to grift conservative morons she would have done better. Although to be fair I thought about that last for a few times myself.
I’ve seen some lazy sea lion performances in my day, but this is might take the cake.
Nowhere did I defend any of their crap takes, i simply felt AOC’s comment came off more about their athletic performance than their bullshit. I’m all for attacking the bullshit, but don’t want to give the opposition an opening to be dismissive of our arguments because we were unfair in our own attacks.
I acknowledge that’s a fine line to walk here, and that it’s a matter of perspective that I felt AOC may have crossed it, but if I did then others are likely to have, too. As such, I’d rather minimize any opportunities for our arguments to be diminished as bad faith themselves.
you’re saying it’s cool to criticize physical aspects of a person over which they only have so much control?
When that person’s famous for actively pushing transphobic policies by pretending they’re a top athlete? Yes. Nothing wrong with not being the very best. I certainly am not at anything.
I can see that logic to a point, I’m just not comfortable using it to justify attacking them. Attack their shitty takes all you can, not the things they only can do so much about because that line of attack is not entirely fair, and thus detracts from the validity of the part of your argument that is fair.
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Seriously? We’re in a trans community, and you’re saying it’s cool to criticize physical aspects of a person over which they only have so much control?
That’s such a dumb assertion. Sure there are some athletes that have inborn physical advantages in some sports but the vast majority of athletes are just regular people that train very hard. Also even those innate physical advantages will not make it a guarantee that someone wins in that sport, they still need to put in the work in training before they can take advantage of them.
For example, even though Michael Phelps has a longer than average arm span that doesn’t mean he can jump in the water with no training and win the Olympics. The man wouldn’t have gotten all those medals if he didn’t train constantly since he was 11.
And yet again, my issue was with attacking them for the athletic showing, not for their shitty attitude and blame shifting - feel free to go off on that bullshit. You’re right in almost everything you said, you just misinterpreted what I was trying to say.
Look, you’re in the wrong. Learn and grow from it. Or at least try.
No, I’m not. Mob mentality doesn’t make right, just might.
Riley Gaines came equal fifth with a trans woman, and then spun that into a narrative where competing with trans women is unfair on cis women. The top four finishers were cis women. She lies, constantly, about how the system was stacked against her, when she’s just not a very good swimmer. She brought the conversation onto this topic, that she would actually be able to excel if the playing field were “fair”. Pointing out that she wouldn’t is not only reasonable, but it’s important to do, because it lays bare the fact that both her and the trans woman that’s caused her to feel so disaffected are equally not that good compared to their peers.
It’s really bold of you, a cis person, to come into a trans space, and tell us all off for ‘being mean to’ someone who you admitted you had never heard of, when she is a TERF who has used her platform to help pass trans sports bans in a number of states. It has a real “you must be tolerant of the intolerant” vibe to it. I think you should try and be introspective about the privilege that you have, that’s led you to have this opinion.
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Yep. Definitely strange… Weird, even…
I agree 100%, placing 5th in the division 1 NCAA championships for your main event is still something I think most people would be willing to admit is very impressive. It’s something well above and beyond what most people accomplish. To act like she is a failure as an athlete because of it is honestly kinda sad. Why diminish the accomplishment of another woman like that?
Too bad. Mob mentality got us Trump. “Everyone” is hardly a good measure of what is actually the best option.
You brought the mob mentality into this thread friend. It’s you. You’re carrying the mob mentality
Says the one posting “everyone disliked that.”
What community do you think you’re in? Because it’s about and for a minority group. “Everyone” in that meme clearly was referring to everyone here in this group.
Mob mentality got us Trump.
Way to accuse trans folks of being Trump supporters I guess.
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To hell with civility politics, let these fuckers have it
Speaking of personal failings, this take you’ve got here might be a good piece for you to cut out and paste into your own personal fail collage.
I’m honestly a little disappointed.
No, this is going on my wall of pride for sticking to my guns on what’s right in the face of overwhelming opposition. Mob mentality got us Trump.
I’m honestly way beyond “a little disappointed” in this community.
Thanks for the update, High Road Hillary.
I’d much rather be “High Road Hillary” than “Temper Tantruming Trump.”
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First-past-the-post forces AOC to be critical of terrible people.
I thought I made it clear I had no problem with that. I just don’t think she should sink to their level, but instead stick to the actual choices her targets make.
Not sinking to their level got us here in the first place. Calling people out on their bullshit is not only necessary, but crucial in forming a civilized society.
Always call out assholes and liars.
Again, calling them out isn’t the problem. I’ve already explained this multiple times.
Oh, fuck it. Go be just as shitty as they are. Screw trying to make a better world for all, let’s just fight each other to the death, & whoever wins gets to have their way with whatever’s left after all the destruction.
Y’all seriously need to grow TF up.
If you play in competitive sports publicly, you are openly allowing people to criticize your performance in said sport.
That is quite literally how competitive sports work.
Which has nothing to do with the shitty attitude towards trans people. Conflating the two like they did makes you no better than them.
It directly has something to do with it though. She has claimed, again and again and again, that she would have been the best in her sport if not for trans women, when she came fifth behind four other cis women. Her activism actually got the NCAA to strip all titles from all trans women that have competed in the women’s division, including Lia Thomas’ fifth place finish against her. Let me repeat that, she is such a sore loser that she got the woman who tied with her for fifth place’s title stripped.
Also, did you even read the article and watch the linked video? A senator literally says she would have been the best without Lia Thomas competing, and she goes along with that. https://youtu.be/WZDYue_p2lo
Irrelevant. I never said their shitty attitude should be tolerated, just that the wrong thing was being attacked.
You take the high road. I’ll take the low.
