This has mostly been reported as "trans women banned from women's chess" but it's much more sinister. (as if it weren't already.)
ALL trans people are targeted by this ruling. Trans men will be stripped of all chess titles won, which can only be returned to them by “changing the gender back to a woman” (from the ICF’s ruling). ALL transgender chess players will be marked as trans in their files.
If you play or know anyone who does take a stand on this. It's ugly.
This news has caused some people to ask why "women's chess" even exists -- women can compete in the open tournament. The women's competitions were a recognition of just how far behind chess is when it comes to cultivating and welcoming female players.
Not that shocking they are even more far behind when it comes to even knowing what that would mean. (eg not excluding trans women.)
But all this misses the bigger point. They don't want any trans people at all in their games.
I think there are some obvious reasons why thats true.
My brother was pretty good at chess and won some trophies on the school team so I tried to join. (he told me when he joined he didn't even know how to play.)
This ended up being one of the most explicit experiences with sexism in my life! The first time I showed up they pretended I was in the wrong place. "This isn't the chess club it's the Anime club."
I told the advisor who now resented me for making him come to the meetings. 1/
The bald eagle could have easily gone extinct. But we did all sorts of "woke" things protecting it legally, ran conservation and study programs, banned DDT (that was good for other reasons too) and in 2007 they were removed from the endangered species list.
Likewise pine forests could be dead from acid rain.
The ozone could have a huge hole.
We CAN take care of nature when we want to. And the successes have been worth it.
I really wish the people complaining about the use of "woke" to describe environmental law would pay a little more attention to who is using (misusing) that word now... and consider that "tree hugger" used to be something of a nasty mocking term for anyone who dared to suggest that maybe driving animals into extinction was... bad and wrong...
For me, right to to repair isn't just about ewaste, and preventing corporate gouging.
It's about mental health. Being able to fix your gadgets is therapeutic. Empowering. Good for the soul.
In a world full of complex technology it's easy to feel small and helpless. And maybe I'm too much of an idealist, but I think that if everyone could experience the joy of fixing or modifying a gadget now and then we'd all be a little more open minded, a little more daring. A little harder to push around.
And if you’re not going to fix it yourself, having the quiet guy with his little repair shop in the old service station or the funny woman with cool hair in the basement shop under the sandwich place is a public good whether you need something repaired or not. Those places existing are good for a community’s ephemeral spirit.
@futurebird We have a public library here in Nashville that started a Repair Fair by recruiting volunteers to perform repairs and randos to bring their things to fix. Big success!!!
I've been trying to find the right way to articulate this-- but the folks on the right have it backwards about who is driven by "white guilt" --
This impulse to cover up and distort the history of slavery reeks of shame. It's, frankly, weird. Nobody has perfect ancestors, what sort of crisis of identity leads one to lie about the past.
It's just the things that happened. You learn about them you learn from them. You do better. Don't make it so emotional and personal.
I assume you get why it's not a nice thing to say that "slavery helped black people in some ways" but I think some people miss why this particular idea is exceptionally racist.
One of the main arguments to justify slavery was that it "civilized" black people by making us Christian & teaching us obedience to our "betters." Black people were "lucky" or "better off" as slaves.
It assumes that when people were enslaved they had no skills, nothing to offer, that they were basically animals.
I get the feeling the original idea they wanted was "black people benefited from slavery because they became Christian." -- but, this was probably too obviously a violation of separation and racist.
Black people didn't just passively learn Christianity, btw. We re-invented it into a theology of liberation that drove the Civl Rights movement. So much synthesis and invention occurred despite slavery not because of it.
So much of what those people knew has been lost forever, but not all of it.
@futurebird the ones that are hard to find in home improvement centers are those designed for tracks. Like t-slot or mitter nuts (used in tools like circular saws, routers etc to screw hold down bolts. Or hammer nuts for fastening to extruded aluminum frames after the frame is built (can be used with tracks too)
If you are a white leftist and you talk “both parties are the same they are both capitalist” you will loose most of your black audience. I think it ought to be obvious that this isn’t because blackfolks love Democrats (in most cases, there is always someone being simple in any group) —no. it’s because the difference between the parties is material and obvious and these are unstable times.
When I hear such talk I wonder if the speaker is working on voter suppression.
Voting brings me no joy — but I never miss an election out of a kind of stubborn spite. I’ve never heard anyone explain how having all the marginalized and left leaning people not vote would be more annoying to the Democrats and Republicans than if we all do vote— and for the Democrats especially in the primaries.
I also don’t think voting is real political engagement, but it’s kind of the bare minimum. Even if you do a write-in for every office.
I don’t have every answer. (And I certainly can’t force any democrat to do anything.) The one thing that has worked is building local networks. If there are homeless people in your area get to know them, work with your neighbors to help them with food, (or in my case using my mailbox) find out who the worst cop at the nearest precinct is and help file complaints. Show up at school board meetings and co-op board meetings— talk to who isn’t being talked to amplifying what they say.
I still cannot get over the wonder and mystery of what gall wasps can do to plants. This is bio-engineering! The wasp lays her egg and somehow the plant makes a structure that is not a fruit, it is not a seed, it is not a leaf or stem. It's a wholly recombinant architecture customized to the needs of the growing young larva. The plant provides food and shelter-- It's like a cancer, but with a purpose.
There is a great article producing "how did that evolve" and "what the hell is going on here" and a little "they can do that?" And a couple "wait, what's"
"Plant Cells of Different Species Can Swap Organelles"
"In grafted plants, shrunken chloroplasts can jump between species by slipping through unexpected gateways in cell walls."
Horizontal transfer is being used for DNA information to be passed not vertically from mother / father genes, but "sideways" transferring a gene, like the astounding slug breed that ACQUIRED photosynthesis, the ability to eat sunlight.
This is another thing, its name not yet famous, of sharing cellular makeup, sharing abilities, shating the organic structures that preform the ability.
Life, supporting life, not even same species. And its built in!
Compassion squared
“We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment.”
C.S. Lewis, preface to "The Screwtape Letters", 1961
I think they are crumbling under the pressure. Maybe skip the fireworks? If only to save the Washington State Dept. of Natural Resources from losing the last shreds of their sanity.
We learned this the hard way: if you don't have anything tied to not getting vaccinated enough people will opt out out of vague notions about medical distrust, or just the inconvenience of getting it done, that you will have outbreaks.
Nearly all schools from Harvard to little community colleges simply won't let you teach or attend if you don't have the shots. It works.
When you have private schools without these rules ... that's where we've seen outbreaks. This is so simple. Come on.
I think most people would object to forcing women to wear skirts. Beating up girls who do unladylike things like dancing or calculus. Many can even see how silly it is to tease a boy for enjoying painting more than sports.
Most* get this.
What I don't understand is how it isn't obvious that transphobia is the exact same impulse.
There is no "reasonable" amount of transphobia you can tolerate without also supporting rigid harmful gender norms in general. 1/
It is impossible to make policies that target trans people without also subjecting cis women and men even more rigid gender boundaries too.
If you have a rule about "only assigned female at birth people can use this bathroom" the cis tom girls are going to get targeted too. (and some trans women will never be noticed)
I think it's crappy if this is the only way to get people to care about it. But it's so dangerous I'll take it for now.
@futurebird it is fucking infuriating that people are trying to give schools permission to strip search your daughter if the gym teacher thinks they’re too good at sports and call it “protecting kids.”
"I'm upset about abortions"
"Let's fund sex ed, contraceptives and health care for pregnant women, it will cause the number of abortions to decline dramatically."
"NO. Send the women & doctors to jail."
"I'm upset people jump the turnstyle"
"Let's properly fund the subway and make it free and faster while reducing overhead."
"NO. I want those bad teens ARRESTED."
"This dreary area under the bridge is DISGUSTING."
"Let's clean it up & install a public restroom."
"NO. Arrest people for pooping"
I don't know what to do about this. I don't know how to help people who are more focused on punishing than stopping whatever it is that's bothering them.
And sometimes it's not even something they have the right to be bothered about (abortion, people being gay, etc.)
I'm not a magic saint. I don't like it when there is disorder. And I want to find ways to make things better, if it's my business.
@futurebird Jeremy Bentham spent half of his life inventing cheap, effective solutions to "problems" like this, many of which were along the lines of "get rid of anti-gay laws and mind your business" or "just build homeless people houses to live in." But after about 30 years of asking various governments why they prefer more expense and rage to simply making life survivable for more people, he ended up with his theory of "sinister interest"--powerful people just want to see other people suffer.
If the idea of violent protests don't make you at least little scared I wonder how well you know history. At the same time, real change almost never happens without people putting their bodies on the line.
The right understands this far better than your average liberal/moderate. To be a moderate is to trust that existing systems will (mostly) work.
If those systems fail? What then? To even consider this is moderate treason.
It's not a good thing that one side has all the guns.
I saw a photo a few days ago. I think it was titled. "Vermont politics" -- in it a scruffy cheerful white man held a gun and a sign. The sign said something like "Respect my trans daughter and my right to bear arms!" (did anyone else see this?)
Some people were annoyed at the guy for being so into guns. I could only think how glad I was for his daughter that he had one.
What I expect and have started to see from the right is a resurgence of extra-judicial "justice" that is: lynchings. There is a blurry fringe in law enforcement, people armed and ready to take matters into their own hands. Would they harm fewer people if there were a chance their targets might be armed? I don't know.
I just can easily see it going in this direction. I don't know how to stop it.