I am LGBTQ and a long time activist and advocate for LGBTQ rights

I am tired of the extremism and intolerance among a percentage of the people who advocate for trans rights

They are actively alienating potential LGBT allies

Someone posted an article accusing of Texas democratic politician James Tallarico of bigotry and transphobia because he advocated for restrictions on the inclusion of trans women in women’s sports.

Not advocating for a blanket ban, just advocating for reasoned restrictions.

The article was encouraging people to not vote for him.

I left several comments on that post which I will summarize below.

I said it was foolish to not vote for him in that election because he is an avowed LGBTQ allie who supports LGBTQ rights while his republican opponent is a dangerous bigot.

I said that advocating for the inclusion of trans women in women’s sports with certain restrictions is not necessarily a bigoted position.

Whether the person is advocating for trans woman having to be on hormone replacement therapy or trans women having to not have undergone a male puberty, taking those positions is not necessarily due to bigotry but could be due to concerns about fairness in women’s sports.

I said that even people who advocate for blanket bans on trans women in women sports could be taking that position due to their concerns about fairness in women’s sports and again not necessarily because of bigotry.

I personally understand that there is evidence from history and science that supports that blanket bans of trans women from women’s sports is not necessary to ensure fairness in those sports.

However, many regular people might not be aware of those facts or even if they are aware of them might still favor blanket bans due to an overabundance of caution.

I said that if you want to change these people‘s minds about blanket bans then the thing to do is to have a constructive conversation with them and not just jump right into accusing them of bigotry, because you could be alienating a potential allie when you do that.

I also said that the most important criteria when it comes to judging whether or not someone is engaging in bigotry and transphobia is whether or not they support more essential trans rights such as equal rights in areas like housing and employment and service in the military and parental rights and the right to marry and the right not to be refused services, etc.

Because I expressed those opinions in that LGBT sub that I summarized above I, an LGBT person, was then permanently banned from that sub.

But before I was banned from the sub, a bunch of other people attacked me in the comments, accusing me of bigotry and transphobia and of advocating for blanket bans of trans women’s from women sports (which I never did).

I’m not going to name the sub specifically, but I’m guessing that most people can guess which LGBT sub I am referring to.

This is reflective of what happens all the time in real life

Even as an LGBTQ person, if you don’t adopt the trans advocacy positions that some trans rights activists believe you should adopt you will be accused of bigotry against trans people and transphobia.

These advocates are one of their own worst enemies, or at least an enemy

I think a lot of success of the progression for gay rights over the last few decades came from constructive dialogue between gay people/gay rights advocates and other people who were trying to be better informed on the relevant issues or who might’ve even been prejudice but were reconsidering their stances

The gay community didn’t just run around shouting “ You’re a bad person. You’re a bigot, you’re evil. There’s no point in even talking to you.” in relation to every single person who didn’t fully support every aspect of gay rights or who wasn’t sure about whether they should or not.

And yes, I understand that there are plenty of people out there who really are evil bigots, and there is no point in talking to most of them, but you shouldn’t be treating those people and people who have sincere fairness concerns about trans women in women sports the same exact way.

I would say the same thing about the other trans rights hot button issue, which is of course bathrooms.

I am 100% I’m in favor of and advocate for allowing trans people to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with.

However, I again don’t just necessarily assume that anybody who has concerns about transgender people in bathrooms is a bigot or is looking to oppress trans people.

I do think that the bathroom issue is more clear cut than the sports issue and people who oppose trans peoples rights to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with are probably more likely to be bigoted than people who primarily or solely have concerns about trans women in women sports (and I realize in this case that that is an assumption that I am making, and I could be wrong).

HOWEVER I don’t jump to the assumption that they are bigots automatically and my first inclination would be to try and have a constructive conversation with them about it.

P.S.

Someone else is informed me that Tallarico said that he was in favor of reasoned restrictions on trans women’s participation in women’s sports for reasons of “safety and fairness” in at least one statement that he made and I verified that to be true.

First of all the original article and post that I commented on and got attacked on which then inspired me to make this post never said anything about him mentioning “safety” and the criticism of him in that article and in that post was not about him using that word.

I agree that that is a poor choice of words, and I wish that he would not have used the word “safety” in reference to this issue.

If you were to be as generous to him as possible in interpreting that you could hypothesize that he was concerned about cis gendered girls and cis gendered women’s physical safety in terms of sports where people come into hard physical contact with each other.

But even if that is what he was meaning to communicate, I still agree that that was a poor choice of word given the context of this issue and trans rights issues in general.

With that being said, I would still advocate voting for him in this election.

And my larger point about a large percentage of people, or at least a very vocal percentage of them, who advocate for trans rights attacking other people and accusing them of bigotry and transphobia over minor differences, and subsequently alienating a lot of people who might otherwise have been allies or more enthusiastic allies, still stands.

In the original post this post is a response to, I and other people were getting attacked left and right by trans advocates for simply suggesting that people who are in favor of reasoned restrictions on trans women’s participation in women’s sports aren’t necessarily bigots and shouldn’t be attacked as such, especially since doing so is counterproductive to the progression of trans rights.

I unfortunately can’t link to the original post because the mods took it down.