Losing My Perspicacity October 18, 2024

Good morning and happy Free Friday! Thanks for subscribing to Losing My Perspicacity.

LMP is 100 percent funded by reader subscriptions. If you like what you see, please consider upgrading to a premium subscription to get LMP in your inbox five days a week.

Today: Nevada forfeits volleyball match rather than play against a trans woman; The Liberty hit a shot to remember; Is X finally in its death throes? And Mentos suffers some truly terrible product placement.

Here we go.

Daily News for Curious Minds

“I stopped watching the news, so sick of the bias. Was searching for an alternative that would just tell me WHAT happened, with NO editorializing. I found it. It’s called 1440. It assumes you are smart enough to form your own opinions.”

Sign up now!

Nevada volleyball players choose forfeit over playing against a trans woman

(heavy sigh)

Here we go again.

University of Nevada volleyball players have chosen to forfeit their game against San Jose State, all because the Spartans have a trans woman on their team.

Before we get to the heart of the arguments, you should know that no one has confirmed this player’s gender identity. She was outed by Reduxx, a shitty anti-trans website that is targeted at TERFS. Outing anyone against their will is evil and cruel and destroys people’s lives. So it hasn’t even been confirmed that this player is trans. Whether she is or not, no one deserves this kind of public scrutiny. Oh, and by the way, Reduxx says they got a “tip” from the mother of a player on an opposing team. Shocker.

I went over to San Jose State’s women’s volleyball page, and it turns out their record, even with four forfeits, is 9-3. They’re 4-3 in their conference; 2-2 at home. So first off, the claims that this is a “safety” issue seems to be overblown, much like the Italian boxer who first faced Imane Khelif in Paris proclaimed that “she’d never seen a woman hit so hard.” As it turns out, Khelif was a woman and had been beaten by plenty of other women. Khelif competed throughout the rest of the tournament without incident.

Second, the (alleged) trans woman playing for SJS has already played for the team for two seasons without any problem. In 2023, the Spartans finished with a record of 13-18. Clearly, this player does not make her team unbeatable.

Also, according to Yahoo, she isn’t even the best player in the conference:

I’ve written many times about the falsity of the claim that every man who plays a sport is better than every woman who plays a sport. It’s simply not true, and some studies have shown that trans women are even at a disadvantage in some physical areas, including lung capacity, bone density, and lower body strength. All things one needs to play volleyball at a high level. And look, I played travel club volleyball in high school and intramurally for many years after. Everyone hates the person who spikes as hard as they can and drills their opponents into the ground. BUT IT’S VOLLEYBALL. And let’s not forget, there are plenty of women who hit that hard. Terrifying hits are not exclusive to men. Volleyball isn’t even a contact sport.

I can remember my club volleyball coach, who played professionally at one point, hitting balls at us from a ladder at the net as hard as he could to teach us not to be afraid of digs, and we were in high school — I’m fairly sure women playing at the college level can handle hits from a trans woman of the same age.

And here’s the real kicker in this story:

Her roommate didn’t even know she was trans. Reduxx has blown this poor girl’s entire life up. And for what? A couple of wins in a Mountain West volleyball match?

I’m so exhausted by the witch hunt to identify trans people who are just living their lives and not bothering anyone. San Jose State, without the four forfeits, has a record of 5-3. And even if they were 20-0, no one has a right to win a volleyball match. San Jose State and its players are in compliance with NCAA guidelines for eligibility. End of story.

But so much more than that, no one’s desire to win is worth more than someone else’s humanity and sense of peace. It’s volleyball, not world peace. No one is curing cancer. You don’t have a “right” to win just because the other team has a player that’s better and stronger than you are — and that happens all the time among cis women playing sports. There are always teams that have a ringer, someone who developed sooner than everyone else and is much bigger, or is just a freak of nature who is far and away superior to everyone she faces. It’s sports, it happens.

That doesn’t even seem to be what’s happening here. Teams are beating San Jose State. The player in question hasn’t even been good enough to be recognized or lead in stats in her own conference. Even the player leading the Nevada protest admits she initially just thought the trans player was just really good; though not good enough, apparently, to help her team finish with a .500 record.

Of course, conservative politicians are flocking to Nevada games to support women attacking other women.

This feels like cruelty for cruelty’s sake. I’m a Gen Xer, and a lot of us played organized sports with boys for much of our lives, especially in more rural areas where girls’ teams in some sports didn’t exist. It’s great to see the explosion of women’s sports and the opportunity so many young women have today. Opportunities we didn’t have. But we sure as hell didn’t fight for girls and women to have their own space in sports so they could use it to exclude trans women.

Do better, Gen Z.

In happier news in women’s sports…

DID YOU GUYS SEE THIS SHOT?

I had already put yesterday’s newsletter to bed by the fourth quarter of the Lynx-Liberty game, so we didn’t get to talk about Game Three yesterday. But let me tell you, the scream I let out when Sabrina Ionescu got nothing but net almost gave my husband — who was casually scrolling through his phone — a heart attack. Alas, I am not sorry.

Ionescu may have had the highlight reel shot, but it was Breanna Stewart who put the Liberty on her back and willed them to a comeback victory in the 4th. At one point, you could read Stewart’s lips as she told her teammates, “We are NOT losing this game.”

These finals have been so good. New York is now only a win away from their first WNBA Championship, and they could win it tonight in Minneapolis. The Lynx, however, are a proud and storied franchise. Don’t expect Napheesa Collier, Courtney Williams, and company to go down easily.

We also got the All-WNBA teams Wednesday night:

Caitlin Clark becomes the first rookie in 16 years to make the All-WNBA first team. Candace Parker did it in 2008.

Is this the moment X dies?

I wrote a bit yesterday about my fraught history with Twitter. While I was able to grow a following on the platform that led to me getting opportunities I wouldn’t have otherwise, it’s also been a place where I experienced malice, vitriol, and misogyny directed at me in ways I never would have expected, from people I’ve never met. The only way I was able to survive on Twitter was by blocking people — probably thousands of people by the time it was all said and done. I know many people think muting is the way to go, but it got to the point where people were screenshotting my tweets and sharing them with people I’d blocked. So everyone had to go.

I’m assuming X is making this inexplicable move based on Elon Musk finding out how many people have blocked him, but I can’t imagine how any woman who has been harassed can stay on X now. There are simply too many unstable men there to allow them unfettered access to your timeline.

My experience on Bluesky was that they were not prepared for the number of trolls who followed me over there and created dozens of new accounts each day with names like “juliefatfarts” and “julieateme.” But at this point anything is better than X.

Not only is X putting women at risk of cyberstalking, but they’ve also amended their terms and conditions to require users to grant X the right to use anything posted on the site for a variety of uses, like training AI, and creators won’t be compensated for it.

I’ve kept my account on X in the hopes that Musk would get bored and sell it to someone who actually cares, but I’m fast losing hope. And while I might hang on to my username, for now, my days of posting content on X are over.

Many people are saying it was the greatest town hall ever

I can’t get over the looks on the audience’s faces as Donald Trump describes January 6 as a “day of love.”

Ah yes, the kind of “day of love” that results in feces and urine smeared all over the inside of the United States Capitol. I love it when that happens.

Finally…

Thursday was a rough day for Mentos.

As you may have heard, Israeli authorities informed the rest of the world that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed in Gaza. This is a pic of what was in his pockets.

Ooof.

Having briefly worked in brand social media marketing, I can only imagine the consternation this stirred up at Mentos HQ. Should have stuck with these guys:

Have a great weekend. See you all on Monday.