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I think it’s a pretty good equivalency.
Yes, spurious claims of white supremacy are a different animal than substantiated claims of grooming. The correct comparison is what happens when it isn’t obviously, or even debatably, child abuse, but the label is applied anyway. You are looking at a biased sample and assuming it’s representative.
Look at @Tanista’s response. Child transition is probably a bad idea and definitely a moral hazard. It is understandable to apply the “groomer” label for adults recommending it. How much of that should apply to adults who would criminalize gender treatments for minors or investigate parents for child abuse? That’s 26% and 17% of Democrats, respectively (source); I’d expect higher rates for more nuanced polls. Those are people who should not be labeled groomers even if they vote for...inclusion in sports, or discrimination protection.
Both debates are over category membership rather than category existence. There are flagrant abusers who obviously belong in the category, and there are normal people who get lumped in. The right would very much like to have a weapon remotely comparable to accusations of white supremacy. Trans activists—especially the vast majority who aren’t pedophiles—would quite prefer to avoid this.
Do you think Libs of TikTok really cares about her false positive rate? “Groomer” doesn’t need to be taboo; it needs to be selective.
Okay, but no one in this thread has labeled people groomers on that basis.
So I will do that now!
Both of those view characterizations obfuscate real issues, some of which are also potentially connected with grooming. For example, "discrimination protection" to the extent of allowing this kind of thing looks to me like just another way of shielding a paradigmatically grooming behavior (an adult presenting to children in an indecent, hypersexualized way). Even the inclusion of males in female-only competitions can put young girls in situations where their self-protective instincts toward e.g. modesty get treated by adults as essentially pathological. Finding ways to erode those instincts is also textbook grooming (in the vein of "let's play silly naked games"). So, yeah, even those people have subjected themselves to the label of "groomer," though they may be sad to hear it.
Now, there are surely many people (including many non-Democrats!) who want to make sure that transsexuals aren't being assaulted for it, or losing their job over it, or getting poor healthcare because of it. I, too, believe that transsexuals should enjoy the same legal protections as everyone else! But by and large those are not the issues Democrats are proposing laws about--and certainly those are not the issues addressed by the law proposed in the OP. When someone points out that Democrats are in fact proposing legislation to protect plainly grooming behaviors, it is no answer at all to say "but you have to admit that some Democrats just want rights for transsexuals!"
If you want "groomer" to apply more selectively, start by convincing Democrat politicians to stop legislating the grooming of schoolchildren against their parents' wishes at every opportunity they get.
Looking at the poll numbers, the right may have gotten exactly that.
I have seen some trans activists publicly support Republican efforts to prevent Democrats from legislating the grooming of schoolchildren against their parents' wishes, so good on them. But it is not at all my impression that they form any kind of majority; certainly they are not a vast one. What their actual sexual preferences are is irrelevant. As far as I can tell, trans activists are overwhelmingly in favor of empowering public schools to groom children against their parents' wishes. This aligns completely with my broader experience of leftist politics as explicitly anti-family.
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In my opinion no human, no matter their genitals or gender identity, should on these grounds be excluded from the open/mens category.
But demanding womens category be opened up to biological men, while claimining it is "exclusionary" to refuse to do so, is like calling discrimation that a person whose age-sex is 25 years, but who claims their age-gender is 14 years, isn't allowed to compete in a U15 tournament.
Even if they're taking testosterone supplements?
Can natal men also take testosterone supplements and participate in the open/mens' league?
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We should just get rid of the women category in sports. Let’s them compete at making the most beautiful, smart, compassionate children instead.
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Similarly, claiming it is discriminatory to reward athletes in the open men's tournament better than athletes in the restricted women's category is like calling it discrimination that a 14-year old doesn't get the same rewards for winning a U15 tournament that a 25-year old gets for winning the open.
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More or less.
I find banning the performance-enhancing drug testosterone from the women’s group to be perfectly reasonable; the linked polls suggest I’m not alone, as it’s the most popular restriction across party. This is a decent barometer for the level of discomfort Americans feel regarding trans inclusion.
It’s also a good example of policy debate that isn’t tied to “grooming.”
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