Hacker News Reader

Comment by RajT88 | Hacker News Reader

> It says that the government “will prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender and anarchist” and “will use all the tools constitutionally available to us to map them at home, identify their membership, map their ties to international organizations like Antifa.”

So, Democratic candidates who are looking like they will win a seat this midterm cycle are going to get arrested for "domestic terrorism".

View on HN

Of course, because by the new definition, the leader is "peak American", so everything in collision with his view is naturally "anti-American".

The usage of the term "anti-American" by anyone in a public role should be rejected as insufficient definition and unfit for a representative to use. On the spot, immediately.

Is it anti-American to brush your teeth after breakfast? or rather before? Is both American? Neither of it?

When Trump calls Democrats "enemies from within," that's anti-American.

When Trump refuses to peacefully transfer power to his victorious opponent and instead plays "heads I win tails you cheated," that's anti-American.

When Trump sends the FCC chair to suppress speech "we can do this the easy way or the hard way," or yucks it up with the president of El Salvador over suspending Habeas Corpus, that's anti-American.

The "American Experiment" isn't an empty concept, but it is about democracy and law and rights as opposed to conservative cultural values, and when people in power start to argue that the former must be sacrificed for the latter they certainly deserve to be clowned on. Not because they are wrong to imagine an American Ideal, but because they have its contents exactly backwards.

While I understand the intention of what you're saying, you're still attempting a definition of the term "anti-American", which needs no definition as the term should be rejected as a whole.

I mean, to pick what is perhaps the easiest example, wanting to abridge speech is anti-American by its very definition.

It is possible to have a thing that is anti-American. So I'm not sure what good it is to reject the term altogether.

It could e.g. be "anti-democratic" by a universal definition of democracy and civil liberties which no single country then gets to fork and redefine...

Let's suppose you had your way and the cultural concept of America as a set of ideas and values related to democracy was erased. Would the universal non-national concepts of democracy and civil liberties have been able to inspire Mike Pence to stand up to Donald Trump on January 6th?

Sorry, I don't know what this conversation is about. This is not about a "concept", it is about the label itself.

When the term "anti-American" is used, it is a placeholder for "against my values". Noone is ever anti-American himself, it is only a label applied upon others.

That's why IMO it should be rejected when used by people in a public role, see original comment.

You are free to think otherwise, which I may then label as "anti-American" in passing, while quickly moving on to you mentioning Mike Pence and some random conspiracy I have /s

Again, /s/s/s/s

"Trump is misusing a term, better roll over and let him do it!"

Gross.

Which is not what I'm saying, I'm saying to NOT let him use this term.

How can you miss this fundamental aspect of what I'm repeatedly stating?

"Sad."

its encoded in the US constitution, so its anti-american.

it can be anti-other things too, but its certainly anti-american

Ah, I see, it's the same as "un-American", only without being a word too onerous to use (yet) due to obvious historical implications.

> The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives created in 1938. Their goal was to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having communist ties. It was abolished in 1975.

I'd heard of this but didn't realize it went on for decades.

Turning it around, I'd say persecuting political enemies for being "un-American" - or as a recent book declared, "unhuman" - is a very un-American thing to do. At least according to the values for which the nation stands (or supposed to stand).

> I'd say persecuting political enemies for being "un-American" - or as a recent book declared, "unhuman" - is a very un-American thing to do

Dude. Dude. You've said yourself: this Congress committee went on for almost four decades. And before it, it was Yellow Peril, or anti-Irish sentiments, or manifest destiny with its "the only good Indian is a dead Indian". So, no, it's a very American thing to do, has been since the foundation of the US and arguably from even before than that.

I'm not sure what point your trying to make? I would also say trying to abridge speech is generally "un-American" as well as "anti-American." Are you trying to differentiate between the two terms? Or are you saying because HUAC existed half a century ago that nothing can possibly be considered un/anti-American?

Not really. America stands for something, they wrote a whole document about it.

There is a big difference between being "American" and being something like "German" because Germany has existed for so long as different governments and the thing that ties it together is not an ethos, but an ethnicity. Being American is different, there's no ethnicity that makes one American, there is only it's ethos. The ideals written in the declaration of independence are American values.

And that's the weak link of tying ideals and values to a location like a country:

The group elected to lead and represent this location also represent ideals and values, so THEIR ideals and values become inseparable of the location they were elected to represent.

For a certain period in the mid-1900s, "German values" meant something different than it did before and after, because Germany was represented by a different leader...

> And that's the weak link of tying ideals and values to a location like a country

My entire post is about exactly how this is not the case, American values are defined in a document[1].

[1]https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcrip...

And what I'm trying to explain is, that this paper doesn't matter if it is represented by someone who doesn't uphold its content.

Germany had the Paulskirche-, the Bismarck- and the Weymar-Constitution, all of them before that certain Leader elected into power. He got to define who is worthy/unworthy, decide how to read the document his party represents and change the definition of "un-German"

The words on the paper represent the ideas of what it means to be American. Trump has nothing to do with that. His actions, when the do not align with that paper, can be described as "anti-American".

The US has had a total of _one_ government and what it means to be American is in the founding document of that government. To be German is to lay claim to a history and cultural lineage that is filled with many different governments and even different states all-together.

The US has distinct regional and cultural identities as well, to be a Texan means something more akin to being German. Texas has a history that extends beyond the US. One can be American and Texan precisely because they are describe a different thing.

To be American is to ascribe to a certain set of ideals and, as far as someone isn't living up to those ideals, they are "anti-American".

Technically, the US has had multiple governments: the original 1781 Articles of Confederation qualifies, as it had a Congress (although a weak one).

What I read is "what it means to be American" is more clear in ideology and values as "what it means to be German", and I can only wholeheartedly disagree with that.

As someone who is neither born American nor German, I can tell you that both terms describe a subjective feeling and not objective facts. Moreover, they are terms to create unity/solidarity among those who identify with them and exclude those who don't.

Unlike of course someone born Italian telling you that it's clear for everyone what it means to be anti-Italian: ...don't know, doesn't eat pasta or sthg...? /s

> this paper doesn't matter if it is represented by someone who doesn't uphold its content.

Not at all...that's when the paper matters the most, because the electorate can see that the person in charge is not upholding our values, purely in contrast to the document. The document sets the baseline. Writing things down has value.

Germany specifically hasnt existed for very long. its a younger country than the US, but it was made to combine people of an ethnicity

That kind of gets at my point. To be "German" means something different than being "American".

It's just the idea that vague terms get misused so much I demand the specific. "Anti" anything can just mean you aren't "pro" it enough, or not pro a particular version.

So for restricting speech, you could say not honoring the first amendment or something like that.

I think about this because sometimes people or ideas are described as "problematic". Sometimes for very good reason, but sometimes you find out the speaker has trouble being specific. I like to hear the specific reason when I can to understand the facts or logic. Sometimes these classifications come third hand.

I mean, there are American values. The country was built around the idea of limiting the federal government's power, and adherence not a person, but to a set of values (like freedom of speech). We're explictly founded on the concept of rule of law.

Through that lens, it is very clear what anti-American means: adherence and loyalty to a person instead of a set of values, expansive government overreach, erosion of individual liberties, including the ability to express dissent.

It was also built around a process by which those values can be codified and changed to reflect changing times, i.e. the amendment process. Which we have forgotten about entirely.

What Trump and his followers mean by it, though, is that any disagreement with Trump on policy, strategy, tactics, procedure, or belief is anti-American. The way they use the term "anti-American" is anti-American. Therefore the term outside of context is meaningless. It's been coopted, twisted, and perverted.

Is it exists, something must be antithetical to it.

(Truth is its just rhetoric and it doesn't mean much of anything. That's why its main use is as a cudgel).

Clearly, the southern Indian Ocean and a tiny slice of the Antarctic coast are the most anti-(US of) American.

It only involves a swathe of South-East Asia and China once you are inclusive of South America... ;-)

I disagree.

I would define confidently that Anti-American is aligned with Anti-Constitutional. By definition, it is this nation's founding document and treatise.

An the Supreme Court's ultimate role is to affirm or deny nebulous case law as aligned with the Constitution.

For you that might be a confident definition, for others it might not mean "anti-constitutional" but "against the declaration of independence", for even others it might not create any clear association at all.

That's because something being "American"/"anti-American" is not sufficiently defined in this context. It triggers a highly subjective assumption of what it means, allowing people to evoke "us vs. them" solidarity without actually taking a position.

Example: I can (probably) break your assumed association by stating "women owning credit-cards is anti-American". It (probably) doesn't fit your mental model of what being "anti-American" means, but women were in fact not allowed to own credit cards in US until 1974. So my definition might be more in-line with the era of the constitution than yours.

That's a blunt example. Now imagine I use "anti-American" in a context of "law and order" and then keep talking. People instinctively glance over it because they create the meaning by taking their personal association of being "American" and invert it. You may feel like agreeing but I might actually say the complete opposite of what you think.

That's why IMO the phrase should be rejected from people in a public role.

If you will not say what something is against, then it is by definition for nothing.

on edit: fixed grammatical error, based on bad keyboard gesture moving stuff around.

> When Trump refuses to peacefully transfer power to his victorious opponent

When did this happen? I didn't realize Biden wasn't inaugurated. I could have sworn he was the President for 4 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_January_6_Unit...

I'm skimming the "Aftermath" section and I'm not seeing where Biden's inauguration was cancelled or Trump retained power or anything else? If Trump "refused to peacefully transfer power" how was power peacefully transferred to Biden exactly on schedule the same way it's happened in every other election?

I do see this happened on Jan 7th though:

> 7:10 p.m.: Shortly after Twitter unlocked Trump's account, Trump released a video statement condemning the violence at the Capitol, saying that "a new administration will be inaugurated" and that his "focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly, and seamless transition of power" to the Biden administration.

    The American people deserve to know that President Trump
    and his advisors didn’t just ask me to pause, they asked me
    to reject votes, to return votes, to essentially overturn the election.
    To keep faith with the oath that I made to the American people and
    to almighty God, I rejected that out of hand
    and I did my duty that day.

    - Vice President Mike Pence

This is why the Jan 6 crowd was carrying around an improvised gallows and chanting "hang Mike Pence." The crowd was there to serve as a pretext for what Trump wanted Pence to do, but Pence refused to do it so the self-coup attempt failed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot

Show me where this happened in every other election.

That the fate of our entire democracy briefly rested in the hands of Mike Pence is bad enough in and of itself

The peaceful tour of the capital by pro American demonstrators (sorry, peak Americans) interrupted the proceedings. They were very close to pulling off a strategy of having the senate override the vote, if they hadn’t reconvened before midnight and had Pence left the Capitol like secret service were urging him to do.

Anyway this argument has occurred a thousand times on these boards so if you saw January 6 as peaceful and harmless I can’t change your mind.

that an inssurection was stopped doesnt make it a peaceful transfer of power.

the thing about the US system is that the president doesnt do the transfer of power. they just lose power on a certain day, and congress grants it to somebody new

If you go far into the user you’re replying to’s post history, you’ll find them unambiguously referring to the Jan 6 crowd as terrorists. They are very aware.

I know there’s a pretty strong norm against dragging people for their posting history here, but that’s in service of maximizing light vs. heat and I feel like pretending to be ignorant of recent events in order to relitigate something unrelated in the comments is wholly unproductive.

> you’ll find them unambiguously referring to the Jan 6 crowd as terrorists.

While I wouldn't agree with that, there is no contradiction between that claim and Trump himself "not refusing" to "make a peaceful transition of power" (putting aside the downthread arguments about how the transition of power is actually made).

> pretending to be ignorant of recent events

Disagreement on interpretation is not the same thing as ignorance.

When a coup fails, that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

You are literally claiming the Jan. 6 murder of police officers was "peacefully transferring power".

It was never claimed that it was successful.

> The "American Experiment" isn't an empty concept, but it is about democracy and law and rights as opposed to conservative cultural values, and when people in power start to argue that the former must be sacrificed for the latter they certainly deserve to be clowned on. Not because they are wrong to imagine an American Ideal, but because they have its contents exactly backwards.

From the many responses on this thread, it appears that many either don't want a defintion of "pro-American" or "anti-American" or "an American Ideal" or don't have one but these are core to your point.

How would you define each?

if you're explaining, you're losing

> When Trump calls Democrats "enemies from within,"

He did not say this.

Please spare me the part where you show me the things that you think establish the claim. I have already seen them and they do not establish the claim. At best you are intentionally conflating "Democrats" collectively with specific individuals who happen to be part of the Democratic party.

I could continue on with the rest but you get the idea.

While the exact point at which it becomes "anti-american" isn't clear there's certainly a category of rhetoric in which people peddle subservience to the state (usually dressed up in obfuscating words, like they'll use "society" instead of "the government") that is undeniably "anti-american" except perhaps by some obtuse technical interpretation of all the words. And I will die on the hill that those who peddle such ideals are bad people and ought to be looked down upon the same way we'd look down upon someone peddling phrenology as a basis for racism.

It's like the John Birth society are back in charge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_C...

I'm pretty sure that's the idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unhumans

History sure does rhyme

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare

Don’t give them any ideas.

If unsure, ask the House Un-American Activities Committee.

(P.s. don't ask any questions that they don't like, that would be Un-American).

Im not quite following. Things can be mislabeled as anti American, but everyone has some idea of whats anti-American in principle. Anti free speech for example is anti American.

How that gets applied is a matter of debate. But I think all public officials should agree with that.

Its kind of a fundamental thing to have an idea about the nation’s values. If that’s too taboo for someone then they are quite literally anti American. Having a country means organizing around a core set of values. We can debate what those are but arguing you can’t stand for anything?

I'm Muslim. Born in the US. I've seen politicians and right wing public figures call my entire faith anti-American. One of them just had a nice memorial for their one-year since their death.

The term may have had an agreed upon meaning at some point, but not anymore.

Edit: it seems like most right-wing people conflate "non-Christian" with "anti-American". i don't know what's worse; the fact that these people say and think it, or the fact that their constituents don't know the difference.

It doesn’t have to have an agreed upon meaning. My point is its not inherently bad to think something is anti-American.

In fact, treating the very idea of judging something as “anti-American” as inherently illegitimate is quite literally anti-American. Its saying Americans shouldn’t be allowed to have opinions about what their country stands for.

Fundamentally I agree. But my point is that while it isnt inherently bad to think of something as anti-American, it is bad when politicians use that terminology to create divides and further their agendas. My statement about Islam being anti-American is just one example.

Honestly I think because there is no agreed upon meaning, the term "anti-American" is meaningless and means whatever the speaker/listener wants it to mean, and is just used to score political points.

"Enemy of the people" is also not inherently illegitimate - I mean, the people can surely have enemies, right?

But words and phrases like that have a history of actual use and the resulting connotations.

I’m as atheist as they come and I see the tenets of Islam — as widely practiced throughout the world, and self-reported in a litany of surveys — to be clearly anti-woman, anti-freedom, anti-free speech, pro blasphemy-law, et al … and as a result, anti-American.

Charlie Hebdo was not that long ago. Anti-women practices are the predominant norm. The list of regressive and oppressive political norms is practically endless.

Nothing here absolves Christianity or any other religion of its crimes either, but (1) the sexism is on another scale entirely, and (2) we’ve been far more successful as a global society of separating those religions from their political aspirations.

> the sexism is on another scale entirely

Several nations that are predominantly Muslim have had female heads of state before the US has. If your perception of Islam is based on how Middle Eastern countries practice it then you are only looking at the countries that choose a theocratic way of ruling. Islam mandates that women (and men!) cover certain parts of your body but the most populous Muslim country (Indonesia) you'll see women in hijabs wearing short sleeves or low cut shirts.

Additionally, Christians are the predominant voice on many female-regressive laws in the US, such as the overturning of Roe. Women have been arrested for having miscarriages. If that isn't "anti-woman" i dont know what is.

> we’ve been far more successful as a global society of separating those religions from their political aspirations.

Have we though? Just a few years ago right-wing politicians were complaining that the woke left wanted to cancel Christmas. As mentioned above, Christians won the lobby on overturning Roe. Christians won the lobby on banning same sex marriage.

A religion taking over a country isnt every citizen bowing down to that religions faith. Its everyone in the country being subject to that religion's laws and beliefs regardless of your faith.

What I'm saying is literally The usage of the term "anti-American" by anyone in a public role should be rejected as insufficient definition and unfit for a representative to use.

Especially when glanced-over mid-sentence, the term evokes the inversion of your idea what being "American" means, without ever clarifying whether your assumption is correct.

Me saying "the liberties of the banking sector are deeply anti-American, we will revert those changes to relieve the increased tension they cause in American households" might evoke an association of "less debt" or "owning a home" in a listener, while I might actually mean "women shouldn't be allowed to own credit cards" (because they weren't until 1974 and MY American values are some form of "vanilla constitution")

100% agree. Also because the view, preferences, and cultural norms of America change over time. A law should not rely on such a dynamic definition.

This is the outcome that every privacy advocate has been warning about for decades and being increasingly challenged by people who were fine with it as 'they have nothing to hide and do no wrong'.

The red scare of the 1950s was ridiculous enough, but at least the Soviet Union was an actual threat. We are now at a point where “pro-transgender” is the new threat?

The administration doesn't like it, therefore it's a threat. Similar to negative news, which are fake, and contrary opinions, which are woke propaganda.

Many symptoms of undercover fascism.

> but at least the Soviet Union was an actual threat

The 'threat' was also the reason many working class Americans had generally higher standard of living than they do today

Sure, if you conveniently drop the qualifying word "radically". But that's not what was said. What was said specifically included the word "radically" for a good reason. Radical anything is a threat.

Are you familiar with the concepts of propaganda and lying?

This is the kind of sarcasm on HN that will draw a ton of comments. Good job on really nailing the psyche of the HN community.

I may have issues detecting sarcasm. I hope to god this is sarcasm… because these kinds of takes are rampant on this site.

> Poe's law is an adage of Internet culture which says that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, any parodic or sarcastic expression of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of those views.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

Oh yeah. For that reason (I guess an unpopular opinion?) I have always been a fan of the /s.

yes probably, and ive been calling this as their playbook for about a year

Make no mistake, this is not some sophisticated conspiracy. This is pure laziness and abuse of power. They have been using "domestic terrorist" as a button to slap anytime they dont want to be questioned. the phrase no longer means anything besides "this person questioned authority"

ICE has used it to label people they shot for videoing them. Note that they knew the video evidence existed and labelled them anyway, assuming they would be able to avoid court altogether and prevent the video evidence being seen. In at least one case, this didnt work and the victim was correctly identified as such.

So this isnt hypothetical. It is a playbook being used right now, and people are testing the waters for how much they can get away with.

Heh, now as an Austrian, why does that all sound so familiar?

> The police, "suspecting the conflagration to be the first of a series of Communist acts of terrorism", have arrested a number of Communist leaders.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/1933/mar/28/leadersandreply...

Huh.

As a trans woman, enough is enough! I’m tired of us being made into the scapegoat while literal pedophiles and sexual criminals not only walk free but gain ever greater power and idiots keep blaming us for their problems as they close their ears and stomp their feet’s on the ground

As a fellow trans woman, we've been the scapegoat for reactionaries, at least documented, since the rise of the Third Reich. And if we're honest, probably before that.

Fixing society-scale problems is really hard. Being angry at people who make you feel a bit weird inside is easy. People reliably choose easy.

I'm not going to pretend to understand your stuggle, but I will echo it through my lens. I am not trying to hijack your point, inasmuch support it with my view.

I uses to think that it was about fear of the unknown, or as you've said "Being angry at people who make you feel a bit weird inside".

I now firmly believe that it's a modern form of tribalism. Having an "other", whether as a scapegoat, a fear inducing device, or a target is simply too convenient to ignore. Whether or not one is a globalist is orthogonal to the fact that people ultimately decide, or evolve to see through a different lens.

I would say it slightly differently: humans themselves are tribalistic, and politicians are looking for ways to tap into that to gain and hold onto power.

One look no further than Vietnam for how the government learned to use intranational xenophobia to manipulate different slices of the public into identifying as separate groups that could then be played off of each other. Since then, there has never been as successful a political movement, because we have been turned against each other by state-driven manipulation. AFAIK, this is well-documented policy intended to “maintain civil order” (i.e. prevent the revolution that is so richly deserved).

"tribalism" is a dog whistle

but... but the bathrooms! and the children's sports! /s

it's still baffling to me how incredibly irrelevant niche cases dominate the entire discourse.

Because Republicans get fucking dog-walked on any issue of any importance. The only things they can ever even come close to claiming "victory" on are irrelevant nonsense that no serious person gives a fuck about.

There are now more bills attempting to "solve" the problem of trans girl's in sports (and it is girls, to be clear, trans boys are never an issue) than there are trans girls in sports. It's fucking pathetic.

The funny thing about that is - it's a solved problem. The reason you heard about it for a while is that they hadn't tightened up the rules yet. As with anything, problems are highlighted, they are studied, and new rules are put into place to account for what was learned. Right wing media of course discovered a boogeyman that was so useful they will be using it for years still, even if it doesn't exist.

It wasn’t a problem to begin with. Meta studies recently showed trans women have no biological advantage over cis women after HRT, certainly nothing than cis women don’t have biological variation within anyway. All the rule updates did was exclude and further marginalise an already marginalised extreme minority. There are very few trans women to begin with, fewer of us still are competing in sports. Nothing was studied here, the people who made the rules aren’t scholars, they’re bigots. They’re using us as a distraction from their poor governance.

And as a fellow enjoyer of HRT, I assure you it didn't enhance shit for me, beyond what I was hoping to get: longer, more full hair, boobies, and smoother skin.

My muscles are gone y'all. Like I've had to buy more breaker bars and larger tools so I can keep working on my cars, otherwise I simply could not break bolts anymore.

I used to be able to do 12 pull-ups, and I did get de-trained but now I can barely manage a single one. I lived and did cardio in the mountains for years and now I get winded up way easier. Maybe the politicians making these rules should go on HRT before making unsubstantiated claims.

Btw, feel free to reach out to me I love connecting with fellow trans women in tech :)

Emailed!

I've had to explain to people that lifting something as simple as a case of bottled water can be genuinely difficult after eight-ish years of feminizing HRT.

It's gradual, it's not all at once and I am still slightly taller and heavier-set than the average American woman, so I do have an advantage through having more mass, but anyone that's larger than the average American woman will also have that so it's not really an advantage, just a fact of having a larger body.

Same. You’re further in than me, but it was so alarming at the start when my body looked the same and my remembered priors in strength and cardio capacity, were at my testosterone-dominant baseline. If I didn’t know to expect the steep drop in strength or hadn’t been on HRT knowingly I’d have been incredibly alarmed and probably visited a dozen doctors. I’d look at objects, say to myself, pfft, easy, and be humbled immediately. TBH it’s incredibly affirming and men have been pretty sweet helping me with lifting objects and opening jars.

Yeah, you have to conjure a really weird scenario for there to be any advantage.

Something like waiting until male puberty is already pretty far along and doing extensive strength training and then transitioning and competing immediately in a sport that puts a heavy premium on strength. I think most sports already have rules that would prevent this.

For someone following a more normal transitioning trajectory, there would be zero advantage; probably a significant disadvantage.

A blanket ban is just pure bullying, especially for childrens' sports (which are primarily a social activity, not a consequential competition). Individual sports can have rules to prevent the (primarily hypothetical) abusive cases without preventing children from participating in normal social activities. No one is saying that someone who's 200 lb of solid muscle and started HRT a month ago should be able to compete against girls in football or powerlifting, but pickleball, sure go for it.

> A blanket ban is just pure bullying, especially for childrens' sports (which are primarily a social activity, not a consequential competition).

That I think is the core issue. Way too many people try to live way too hard through their children. Wherever you look, either in the US or (where I'm from) Germany... you'll find absolutely absurd behavior from completely unhinged parents. Just yesterday, that was a topic discussed here [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49686134

Except for in Norway, apparently. https://www.ft.com/content/0fe0455d-8633-4e1a-ab8f-f8cd94d60...

"After HRT" is the key word. The new regulations I am referring to had to do with how soon after was sufficient to remove advantages due to residual testosterone. There were other regulations which were total horse shit to your point.

I would agree that the number of people we are talking about is very small. It was to begin with a very niche issue.

> trans women have no biological advantage over cis women after HRT

As someone who's been into weightlifting and only casual observer-like in regards to testosterone therapy, this doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. After taking TRT/Steroids a person retains a good deal of the muscle/strength they gained even after cessation ... It surprises me to hear that this wouldnt carry over to sports where muscle/strength/power matter.

Additionally, you have to realize that a major concern on the right is that academia itself has become ideological to the point where only politically acceptable studies can be 1) studied and more importantly 2) published. There's a lot of people out there afraid to speak what appears to them (and their work) to be truth for fear of the backlash and career consequences.

Quite the contrary. If you want to publish something going against "the narrative" (if something like that exists in the first place) has never been easier than now. Proper keywords and the far-right and their pseudomedia are going to give even the worst quackery a time in the spotlight - just look at RFK Jr.

> Additionally, you have to realize that a major concern on the right is that academia itself has become ideological to the point where only politically acceptable studies can be 1) studied and more importantly 2) published. There's a lot of people out there afraid to speak what appears to them (and their work) to be truth for fear of the backlash and career consequences.

Oh complete and utter twaddle.

Academia trends toward progressive views because the more educated you get, assuming you have principles and employ critical thinking consistently, the more ridiculous the positions of the right tend to look. You cannot look at the totality of climate change data and go "well clearly it's not man made" unless you either don't understand it, or cherry pick it to oblivion. You can't look at the history of Austerity politics, deployed both here and in the UK by our respective free market goblins (Reagan and Thatcher) and hold that it's good for anyone at all apart from those who are already wealthy.

This boogeyman of BIG SCIENCE holding down all the conservatives is complete and utter dreck. Show me literally one example of it. Show me one individual who's life was ruined and their career decimated to uphold ideological ends.

There are many, many examples of left-wing ideology causing harm to researchers, professors, and the like. If you are in academia, you must submit to the left-wing group think or you will be cast away. Literally takes 10 seconds to research.

https://www.campusreform.org/article/professor-punished-oppo...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/09/elite-academia-...

Also a weightlifter (masters olympic weightlifting, nationally ranked). TRT and steroids are actually the opposite. Once you go off of them, your body starts to revert, muscle mass is lost, and often by more than you started with (because the body's natural production rates change with supplementation). It does take time, which is why sports regulatory bodies typically require specific time periods of hormonal therapy before they can participate, but their bodies will eventually adjust.

Sports regulatory bodies still test for hormonal PED, but their concerns have long swayed away from them because of the fact that they are so easy to detect and have the built in disadvantage of potentially altering your life negatively outside of sport. The current concerns have shifted to peptides and other forms of PEDs, because they are much harder to detect because they are 1) often naturally occurring but in smaller quantities, 2) don't actually directly act on the musculoskeletal system, but rather trigger natural processes that act on the system, and 3) often have half-lives dramatically shorter than most drug tests can even account for, and therefore require near continuous monitoring.

Agreed you lose your peak, however once a steroids user you will mostly retain more mass than a natural. It only takes a fraction of stimulus to retain mass versus adding it.

The extrapolation I'm making, and admitting it's an extrapolation, is that a sexed at birth male competing in womens sports will have had a developmental period of hormonal advantage over females which follows them regardless of gender identity.

So here’s the thing with that. My testosterone is in the cis female range. Has been for a while. I strength trained for years and even after having started estrogen. I continued going to the gym while on HRT and my capacity kept decreasing rather than increasing. So I looked into this. Because visibly I still had the muscles I’d gained. To actually activate said muscles, you need testosterone. That’s how it works. No testosterone = the muscles never activate = they atrophy away. While I looked the same in terms of muscles that I had while I was doing 12 pull-ups, I quickly came down to being able to do 0 unassisted. Now the visible bulk is also reducing because they just never get activated. A cis male on steroids still has testosterone after cessation. Hence the muscles they gained can retain stimulus for activation. I’ve been tracking my body comp through DEXA scans for years now and after starting HRT, within a year I was at the higher end of cis female muscle mass and had lost kilos of muscle throughout my body. Can I still beat most cis women at lifting? Yes. Only because I’m trained, not because I lived for years under heavier testosterone influence. I cannot outlift or outrun trained cis women, only untrained ones. I am unable to outlift my brother who is completely untrained. I used to be able to hold my own arm wrestling with cis men but now I know it’ll be foolish to even try it because even cis men with zero training ever have arms twice my size and active testosterone stimulus to be able to activate their muscles.

The ideology is too tied in with their identity, so you’re not going to persuade them of anything lol.

Yeah I'm guessing if someone walked up to you and crowed a bunch of "common sense" that don't align at all with your own lived experience and understanding of how your own body works, you know the one you're living in and actively in the process, with the assistance of medical doctors, of modifying, you'd be pretty unconvinced of that too.

That doesn't mean people who know what they're talking about are "ideological," it means you're talking out your backside.

Or it means you are delusional and they are talking common sense.

So the broken records are just coincidence? There's no need to study this a priori, just let them compete and see all records get broken. I don't see why people even discuss it. Just let women not win anything for a few years and this discussion would be over.

The paper you are thinking of did not show this, but that the evidence - of males who had weakened themselves with testosterone suppression having no athletic performance advantage over women - is low to very low quality. Such low quality that this hypothesis is not supported.

They do it because it wins them elections. It's a 90/10 issue and national democrats are on the losing side.

Yeah, I don't get this. If they're niche irrelevant issues that affect ~nobody, why not just concede them? Republicans could hardly dominate the discourse with these topics if there was nobody to discourse against.

> Yeah, I don't get this. If they're niche irrelevant issues that affect ~nobody, why not just concede them?

Because there's about 1% of people who are trans in the US [1] and most other populations, on top of that come a further about 1.7% people who are somewhere on the intersex spectrum [2].

Democrats aren't willing to throw literally millions of people under the bus. Republicans aren't just willing to cast them aside - they are knowingly driving trans people to extinction.

[1] https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-ad...

[2] https://www.ohchr.org/en/sexual-orientation-and-gender-ident...

But this is not throwing millions of people under the bus. At least according to this thread, there are fewer trans women in sports than bills stopping them. If this issue does represent throwing literally millions of people under the bus- driving them to extinction-, why are you saying upthread that it's niche and irrelevant?

Bostock affirmed core civil rights to transgender people in housing, employment, etc. The fights now are about other things (not "rights") and as such, are much more unpopular. In fact, a majority of people, even on the right, support the core rights affirmed by Bostock.

> In fact, a majority of people, even on the right, support the core rights affirmed by Bostock.

A majority of people support wage hikes [1], anti-trust laws [2], higher taxes for the rich [3], at least a general responsibility of the government for healthcare insurance [4] and even a full or barely restricted right to abortions of pregnancies [5].

But neither of this gets done despite bipartisan support, because Republican megadonors and their networks heavily keep the GOP in line. And for trans people, it's the same. The anti-trans rhetoric in the GOP gets pushed primarily by Evangelical influence groups, the rest of the GOP does not care, and neither do the voters.

[1] https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/issues/economic-justice...

[2] https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/47798-most-americans-oppos...

[3] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/19/most-amer...

[4] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/12/10/most-amer...

[5] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opini...

This isn't a fight we can avoid by retreating. They would just advance and the same battle would happen on different ground. If we abandon the trans, the culture wars will be about the gays. If we abandon the gays, the culture wars will be about blacks or hispanics or jews or god only knows. There's something to be said for picking firm ground to fight on, but there will be a fight and it cannot be won by retreating.

Why am I being interpreted as advocating for abandoning the trans? I don't want to do that and I don't need to be convinced by my empathy for gays or blacks- I care about trans people themselves! I'm saying if an issue doesn't matter- according to the trans people in this thread- and it's a losing issue, why are we insistent on fighting it anyway? Who benefits from this?

It'd probably be best to give an example of an issue you're talking about. I thought you were saying to concede trans topics altogether.

Hmm, yes, I see that and that the person I was responding to is getting read the same way, but not clear why that's the case. We're both in this conversation under [1]. The sports issue is the one that's 90/10 [2], while the bathroom one is maybe in the neighborhood of 60/40 [3]- I do think there is a chance of winning ground on the latter and should have been more specific. But nobody is saying there's 90/10 in favor of transphobia- a substantial majority views trans people favorably[3].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49712333

[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/08/11/most-amer...

[3] https://prri.org/press-release/new-survey-finds-strong-major...

Because then they'll move on to the next victims and in having surrendered without even a fight you've granted them momentum for no good reason whatsoever, and you'll have fewer allies left too.

Is there a reason to believe this is how things work? Rather than "within a democracy as long as 'trans rights' means something that most people disagree with, it will be harder to advance the pro- side of the issue"? Is there evidence of 'momentum' being a real thing in politics, as opposed to the 'pendulum' that I've witnessed over the last decade?

Everything related to the right wing and fox news? We never had a big "swing left" - clinton was the democrats showing they can do economic conservatism as well. Modern acceptance of trans folks isn't a pendulum, most of the people espousing anti-trans views weren't pro trans 5 years ago.

Trying to abstract history into major shifts that are attributable to inanimate objects is just very ludic fallacy.

I'm confused by this. Are you saying that everything related to the right wing and fox news is evidence that momentum is a good model or that trying to model history with momentum is fundamentally fallacious? If the former, you've really got to be more specific- was firing Tucker Carlson evidence for momentum somehow? Did Republicans conceding gay marriage or Trump conceding abortion give Democrats momentum?

Sorry for being confusing, I was saying the latter - that these are reducing history to some game that can be understand with rules when it is nothing like that.

If you go back 15 years or so, you hear the exact same "concerns" about gay people pretty much word for word. Now that they're no longer an acceptable target for most people, they've moved on to regurgitating the same baseless fear mongering but targeted towards trans people. If society manages to progress further, they'll eventually come up with another group to serve as the "other" that they can blame everything on.

they're already shifting to immigrants for that reason.

As someone who struggles with my position on some of these topics, one of my major self criticisms/fear is the tyranny of the majority. Even if (and that's a hypothetical if) my values would reject transgenderism, my values of freedom and fairness conflict with forcing another human being onto a specific path, especially with the use of force (government). So even if 90% are cisgendered (I didnt look up the real stat), that doesn't mean we vote to make our world cisgendered... A right and fair leaning is to create the freedoms we'd want if the tables were turned.

I say this all to say it surprises me how many republicans I know are pro freedom until it hits certain topics... Pro 2A and anti-(an adult can choose a different hormonal profile for their own body) is an odd pairing in my mind. Pro free-speach like Alex Jones / Citizens united but anti-(choosing to wear clothes or other adornments/appearance of the other gender) is an odd pairing in my mind.

> even if 90% are cisgendered (I didnt look up the real stat)

The real stat is much higher than 90%, in case you were curious.

The number of people abject enough to end up with transphobic views is thankfully nowhere near that. Most people, as it turns out, are not creepily obsessed with other people's genitals. Most people also aren't driven by a horrible urge to find minorities to torment. Though those who are would sure claim otherwise, of course; trying to normalize their awfulness is part of the playbook.

I don’t have a strong view, but I don’t think that should baffle you, you think the reaction comes from nothing at all? One side is pushing to “wedge” (sort of) into a very low level space so that it cements itself at a foundational level and there’s no repeal or return from it - all or nothing view. The other side picks up on that and doesn’t want to let big changes go unchallenged. It’s a pretty understandable process. The niche cases allow the challenging party to present evidence for a consequence or concern that’s difficult to convey.

HN does this constantly with the surveillance, bring up one case of police abusing it, it’s exactly the same thing.

> HN does this constantly with the surveillance, bring up one case of police abusing it, it’s exactly the same thing.

Because in this case, we're talking about maybe a few dozen (if that) relevant cases in trans youth [1]. With police/secret services abusing surveillance... it's huge enough that LOVEINT [2] is a term, and at least 50 cases were serious enough to be brought under official investigation [3].

[1] https://glaad.org/fact-sheet-for-reporters-transgender-parti...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/08/02/how-pol...

I’m just saying the process is exactly the same and shouldn’t be surprising. I don’t think we need to go into why one is less harming compared to another and that makes it okay to dismiss concerns.

> I don’t think we need to go into why one is less harming compared to another and that makes it okay to dismiss concerns.

Well... one is a niche problem barely impacting anyone. The news reports surrounding the topic of trans youth in sports are all focusing on less than a handful of students. The other is a problem that can be found across the planet with an insane amount of cases never making it to light because no one ever does audits - or if there are audits done, they get circumvented by shared accounts like in this infamous case in Germany [1].

[1] https://www.zeit.de/news/2022-05/12/nsu-2-0-beamter-berichte...

One of the trans acceptance movement's main problems comes, as is often the case in politics, from some of its most militant and passionate activists. To put it simply, those extreme activists overreached and annoyed people. That's not the fault of trans people in general, but it explains some of the backlash and the focus on niche cases.

Basically, the activists I'm talking about overreached by:

- Pushing for speech control around preferred pronouns

- Being overrepresented among Reddit mods, thus becoming to some extent the "face of censorship" for many highly online people

- Equating the mere act of disbelieving trans people's chosen gender identities with out-and-out bigotry of the KKK kind

- Talking about a mythical "trans genocide" and getting angry when people questioned its existence

- Pushing for equal bathroom access long before the American public had actually been made ready for something like that

Etc.

So what we have now in the highly online discourse is essentially a battle between niche militant trans activists who seem to illogically believe that they are on the brink of being put into extermination camps, on the one hand, and niche militant anti-trans fanatics who exaggerate the relatively rare cases of trans people doing bad things for the sake of pushing an overall anti-left agenda.

The militant trans activists I speak of seemingly just can't stop themselves from continuously providing people who actually hate trans people and people who just hate the left with more and more ammunition by having a prominent online presence while saying a mix of untrue and highly questionable things.

Before anyone jumps in with an angry reaction... yes, if it's not already clear from what I wrote, I also think that the right has a problem with insane deluded militant people.

“Militant” trans activists? How is just using someone’s pronouns “speech control”? It’s no different than using a name. If trans people tell you who they are, just believe them, it’s not that hard. There’s nothing mythical about the ongoing trans genocide. Genocides don’t just happen in gas chambers.

https://translegislation.com/

I am not going to say much more here because I’m fairly certain none of this will get through to you given the tone of your comment. Trans people are far more likely to be victims in washrooms than to be perpetrators.

It's cooled down a lot in the last few years, since peak woke passed. But I think that a few years ago, there would have been serious danger of being fired at many companies in the US if you refused to use a trans person's chosen pronouns. Now, one might say, this is just a matter of basic politeness... why wouldn't you use them? However, consider the situation if a white coworker started insisting that people refer to him as black, and you could get fired for not referring to him as black. For the sake of a better comparison, let's say that the white coworker was doing medical treatments to increase skin melanin, hair curliness, and so on.

As for trans genocide, I mean sure, you can make an argument that there is a trans genocide by really really stretching the meaning of the word "genocide" or by using certain parts of highly technical definitions of "genocide". But when trans activists speak of "trans genocide", they are trying to appeal to the emotional resonance of more popularly central examples of genocides, ones with mass killings. If we use the common meaning of the word "genocide", the one that is intended the vast majority of the time the word is used, there is no trans genocide.

As for washrooms, note that I never said that I'm against trans people using their chosen genders' washrooms. What I said is that many trans activists pushed to do this long before the American public had become ready for something of that nature, which contributed to a backlash against the trans movement in general.

"Trans genocide" is a ridiculous term and insisting on it is doing us no favours (and I say this as a trans woman).

https://www.lemkininstitute.com/red-flag-alerts/red-flag-ale...

One example that I had personally run into is when the person was offended when they were referred to as "them" because being gender neutral is, apparently, "erasure" (I didn't get a chance to ask what they think about languages with no gendered pronouns).

> Now, one might say, this is just a matter of basic politeness... why wouldn't you use them?

because enough people don't have any basic politeness left any more, to the contrary, they're actively pissing someone off.

> However, consider the situation if a white coworker started insisting that people refer to him as black, and you could get fired for not referring to him as black.

That one has been a thing for far longer than the entire trans issue, with it peaking in the rise of rap/hiphop music (and leading to the term "whigger" [1]). It eventually sort-of sorted itself once it was no longer edgy to troll people with such moves.

> If we use the common meaning of the word "genocide", the one that is intended the vast majority of the time the word is used, there is no trans genocide.

The common meaning is "a group of people, almost always the national majority, tries to get another group of people extinct". Given that trans youth already have among the highest suicide ratios, it is likely that policies restricting trans youth lead to more trans youth attempting suicide - and guess what, there's proof of exactly this happening [2].

> Pushing for equal bathroom access long before the American public had actually been made ready for something like that

Part of that is the ridiculousness in how many bathrooms are built. On festivals (portapotties), airplanes, trains and most if not all toilets for the disabled, there is no such thing as gender segregation at all - you wait in line, enter the next free booth, do your thing and that's it. Pretty much everyone has used a gender-neutral bathroom at least once in their life, chances are high you used one of them in the last 12 months.

There is no reason at all why toilets cannot be converted to "equal designations". I'd even go as far as to say that "equal" bathrooms are safer for everyone, simply because the facility will be higher frequented.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigger

[2] https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/09/25/nx...

It's not while, it's because. They have to create a "threat" that's of the same "magnitude" as their actual crimes, vectoring out from the subjective origin of "traditional" man/woman identity and relations. They do that by casting transgenderism not as the benign and modest personal identity that it is, but as the same kind of sexually aggressive comportment as their own; something that you do or perform willfully instead of what you are compelled by natural and intrinsic impulse to be.

The first step in defeating it is untangling the action/identity conflation.

You are: someone who is biologically non-female, but whose gender identity is that of a woman.

He is: a businessman and politician.

You do: upstanding, normal folk things.

He does: reprehensible shit like assaulting teenagers and bragging about "grabbing [women] by the pussy."

Hopefully people are able to see who in this comparison is in the wrong.

Taking hormones activates the genes responsible for making someone biologically a woman. That's kinda the point of taking them.

Right. Hormones cause an insane amount of changes. The texture of my skin, my scent, how much oil my skin produces, the haemoglobin in my blood, the size and strength of my muscles, how much fat my body stores, and where it goes, how attraction feels, how emotions feel, what I find rewarding. Certain physical attributes do require different interventions but the vast majority of sexually differentiated traits are decided by the dominant sex hormone in the body, not by the XX/XY genes. See: XY females for instance who have non functioning androgen receptors. When we talk about biological women, it’s also ignoring intersex variations. Biology is way more complex than we make it out to be.

If that's not biological, what is?

https://tr.ee/ttp-read

If it helps, ^^have a brochure explaining all of the ways folks are dramatically misunderstanding us right now. :(

You're not a scapegoat you're fodder for a social warfare diversion to enable the treasury to be looted by both parties while the economy collapses. DC's puppeteers don't give a shit about anything unless it starts with $

What in the enlightened centrism?! All 3 branches of government are controlled by conservatives, as is the fourth estate.

Sorry you’re right the old men with a D on their nameplate in DC really love and care unlike the “other” side.

You read a passage talking about groups of people who provably commit real violence and advocate for more of it, establish "autonomous zones" in cities as part of protest actions, attempt en masse to impede physically the lawful actions of legitimate federal LEO, and explicitly promote agendas that include the destruction of fundamental state institutions; and you imagine that this will be applied to establishment candidates with good chances of winning in a democratic process. This appears to be based on nothing more than your personal impression of the POTUS. I find that to be completely and utterly unreasonable.

Benjamin Song should be all the evidence you need to illustrate that the phrase "domestic terrorism" is completely appropriate to describe things that are actually happening. But there is so, so much more of it.

ACLU will have a field day.

That's already too late.

That is extremely unlikely. There are definitely some people in Trump's camp who would love to do that, including probably Trump himself. However, Trump does not have enough public or institutional support for him to risk doing something that blatant.

That's inline whit some of the goals of the people behind Project 2025 are calling for.

Can you be more specific?

And in the 30s germany started branding things as being anti-german, we all know where that led us. This isn't a new play book by any means. Seeing so many comments debating terminology worries me, we should be discussing the implications.

another important part isn't just the ideology targeting - it's the directive for local and national law enforcement for form Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) targeting individuals and organizations in this vein. JTTFs are already mobilized and targeting people - see https://atlpresscollective.com/2026/06/12/federal-prosecutor...

I think of that poem, First They Came:

  First they came for the Communists
  And I did not speak out
  Because I was not a Communist
  Then they came for the Socialists
  And I did not speak out
  Because I was not a Socialist
  Then they came for the trade unionists
  And I did not speak out
  Because I was not a trade unionist
  Then they came for the Jews
  And I did not speak out
  Because I was not a Jew
  Then they came for me
  And there was no one left
  To speak out for me

replace 'Jews' with the current minoritized target demographic (ie immigrants of any stripe) and we're already fairly far down that list. see the case of David Huerta for the targeting of unions: https://www.courthousenews.com/los-angeles-labor-leader-arre...

Phew, as an anti-American, radically pro-transgender Marxist-Leninist I should be safe; bloody anarchists.

No, Dem candidates are safe. The culture wars benefit both parties and their billionaire owners.

The culture wars are explicitly a tool of the right to provoke fear, anger, and hate against others.

The left gets trapped in it because every single culture war issue (LGBQT+, racism, feminism, reproductive rights, freedom from religion, etc) are responses to the rights reactionary drive to claw back rights from everybody who is not a white male christian.

> The left gets trapped...

Nevermind the wedge driven when moderates who think of themselves as being on the left agree with the idea that past weak attempts to nudge things leftward "went too far", or that there actually is an issue with "government waste". Sir/Ma'am - you are complicit in moving the Overton window to the right.

I've been called a "shrill far leftist" and a "fascist appeaser" so does that make me a centrist? Any labeling I may apply to myself is for convenience of packaged assumptions about my values.

> moderates who think of themselves as being on the left agree with the idea that past weak attempts to nudge things leftward "went too far"

Examples please? Not a challenge, I just am not pickup up what you're laying down.

As for "government waste" of course it exists but to various degrees and in various areas. For example, Medicare fraud is estimated $60 billion to over $100 billion annually. That doesn't mean we should get rid of it -- it means we'd be well served to invest a fraction of that amount in preventing such numbers.

And as far as shifting the Overton Window to the right, that has been the Right itself, via culture war bullshit.

Look, sir/madam, I have no tribe, no political party, no religion, no beliefs that I'm unwilling to change when presented with compelling evidence. I've tracked US politics likely longer than you've been alive. I understand how the game is played and this Red vs Blue is a master class in political manipulation. And the culture war is the key tool used to render it.

So you telling me that I'm the reason why the Overton Window is shifting right is a tell that you're the confused one.

I could have been more clear in my writing, but I was adding to your point of things that trap the left. The "Sir/Ma'am" was addressing a hypothetical left-ish "moderate" who gets trapped into criticizing other on the left by conservative talking points - not accusing you personally. I have no idea what your politics are.

My politics are based on secular humanism and that we all effectively live in a commons.

I'm rabidly anti-partisan but align with Dems because they are the least worst option.

> gets trapped into criticizing other on the left by conservative talking points

One thing I'll concede about the Right -- they excel at defining the language and debate and the Left is almost always playing defense.

But to be a broken record here: the Culture War is the only thing the Right has to offer in the realm of political debate. It's a cheap and nasty, yet incredibly effective tool to manipulate people to vote against their own interest by their induced fear, hate, and anger.

> So, Democratic candidates who are looking like they will win a seat this midterm cycle are going to get arrested for "domestic terrorism".

It would be fascinating to revisit this comment with you after the midterms and see whether your beliefs have changed in any way.

The politicized take on this is not correct. More importantly, it's not helpful.

When the "left" (Democrats) had power recently in the U.S., they were very happy to try to criminalize the protected speech of their enemies. Their tack was to define speech they didn't like as "hate speech", which luckily isn't actually a thing in the U.S., legally. But they were trying to make it happen.

I don't mean to defend one or the other side, merely to point out that this is a non-partisan issue.

Please cite specifically what the Biden administration did to curtail people’s right to freedom of speech.

I’ll wait.

Lololol ok:

Biden: The Biden Administration's promulgation of a Title IX interpretation that, among other things, would have compelled certain kinds of speech:

https://speechfirst.org/case/title-ix/

One example of many: it would have been a punishable offense to refuse to use someone's preferred pronouns. This is what's called "compelled speech", and it's when someone says to you, "Say $THING or else". It's very reasonable for governments to prohibit saying certain things (like national security secrets, for instance, or other people's bank account login info), but thus far forcing people to say things they don't believe has been a bridge too far.

And, happily, compelled speech is a bright line the Americans have, so far, managed not to cross. Everyone should be trying as hard as we can to not cross that line.

You may not see the harm in this particular instance, but establishing "we'll just force them to say it and punish them if they don't" as a tool in any government's toolbox is a very, very bad idea.

Ah, and I should mention Biden's new Title IX rules became law on August 1, 2024 so they weren't "would". Thankfully, we only had a few months under this particular imposition on our basic rights and push never came to shove.

Harris: https://nclalegal.org/opinion/kamala-harris-free-speech-task... Clearly wanted to criminalize speech she didn't like

Walz: https://www.cato.org/commentary/actually-tim-walz-first-amen... Same

Why are these supposedly serious violations funny to you?

Most of what you cited is about what a policy might imply or what someone’s rhetoric might lead to. Also, I don’t know if you knew this, but Walz was never part of the Biden administration.

Are you similarly bothered by the actual First Amendment violations the Trump administration has carried out?

The White House excluded AP reporters because the AP wouldn’t adopt its preferred “Gulf of America” wording. A federal judge found that unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination: https://www.ap.org/media-center/ap-in-the-news/2025/ap-wins-...

The administration targeted pro-Palestinian students and faculty with visa revocations, detention, and deportation efforts because of their political advocacy. A federal judge ruled that unconstitutional: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-backed-targeting-pro-...

It targeted Perkins Coie with loss of federal access, contracts, and security clearances over the firm’s clients and political associations: https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-temporarily-blocks-tr...

It canceled more than 1,400 humanities grants based on viewpoint. A federal judge found that violated the First Amendment: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-judge-rules-huma...

It canceled billions in Harvard research funding in an effort a federal judge found violated Harvard’s First Amendment rights: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-unlawfully-canceled-h...

Many of these Trump cases involve the government actually imposing penalties on people or institutions because of protected speech or association, not just an argument about what a rule might eventually imply.

This is not something you get to pretend is equivalent across “both sides”.

I appreciate you engaging.

Several things:

> Walz was never part of the Biden administration.

I made a claim about the scarequotes(left), not about the Biden administration specifically. You asked about Biden. They were going for succession, you know!

> Are you similarly bothered by the actual First Amendment violations the Trump administration has carried out?

Yes

> AP reporters not allowed

The executive has leeway here, it's not clear exactly how much. Biden wasn't inviting Breitbart in, for example. That a judge found something doesn't mean much, supremes finding something would be meaningful.

> Targeted pro-Pal students

Specifically, pro-Pal foreign students. The Americans are right now in the process of figuring out when their rights apply to foreigners and when they don't. Often, the fed's tack is: we ask you at the border if you support terrorist organizations. If you say "yes", we don't let you in. Turns out you support HAMAS. That's a terrorist org, it's on our list. You lied. Goodbye! So in many cases it's not about speech per se, but rather whether you lied to the feds. And if the "unconstitutionality" thing here holds up, well then...I guess USA decided free speech applies to foreigners in the country. But until very recently that was a murky issue. Maybe still is, idk.

> Perkins Cole

"Liberals" do the same thing. Look at Biden pressuring for debanking of crypto people [https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonyaevans/2025/12/06/feds-bowm...]. Or jawboning Meta. I think it's less salient when left does it because they have captured the majority of institutions. So it looks like business as usual. It looks "legit". Except...it's just Blue enacting its will through e.g. the Fed, or whoever it is that regulates banks.

>Canceled grants

Here, I'm an expert! I'm an academic who has been negatively affected by all this. What some district court judge found is irrelevant, so I'll ignore that (just in case: district court judges are small potatoes and their rulings do not have precedential value). What I will say is: the situation had gotten WAY out of hand. The feds were funding a bunch of batshit crazy stuff that was CLEARLY just fraud and woke virtue-signaling. A lot of good stuff got canceled too, which is sad. That good stuff probably had batshit crazy woke signaling in their grant write-ups because that's the only way you could get funded! Which is sad. Should the admin have used a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer? Yes. Should the humanities be getting much less funding and producing far fewer graduate students? Yes. Even graduating from a top (~Harvard) program, humanities graduate students have something like a 10-25% chance of a "real" (professorship) job. And that might be Northwest Arkansas State Community Daycare College.

> Harvard

Harvard was made an example of. Fair? No. Did they break the law A LOT, just like everyone else? You betcha! Did they definitely discriminate in favor of Pal against Israel? Yes, certainly did. Did the admin handle it in the smartest way possible? Definitely not.

> Trump actually did bad things, not "might"

You have to understand: the "speech" climate in academia has been so, so bad for ten years - and that's because of the "liberals", not Trump and co. It's been insane. The speech restrictions were REAL. People got FIRED. Many more people KEPT QUIET ABOUT REAL SCIENCE THINGS FOR FEAR OF PUNISHMENT. Things are better now, crazier but better. You can talk kinda. The institutions are still >80% captured by Team Blue, but there is a breath of fresh air. A waft. One needn't be fearful all the time.

And I should say as well: the "thou shalt speak the wokeness" thing is, for most disciplines, merely an academic exercise. Lip service. You're a physicist: so what? "Trans women are women". Okay, fine, whatever - I believe it, I don't, I support it, I don't, it has nothing to do with fermions.

But imagine you study humans, and human behavior: suddenly, everything has real stakes. "Black people and white people are different!" --> fired. "Evolution is real and it affects behavior systematically" --> fired. Carole Hooven, for instance (driven out, not fired - cheaper that way).

One final word:

There is an extremely important difference between the tantrums of the present administration and the tack that Biden and Friends were taking. The present administration shows no signs of trying to make its infringements permanent and systematic. The previous group was trying to do precisely and exactly that. Which is much, much scarier to me.

This is untrue. Throw out your TV.

See below! It is true :0(

Reply on news.ycombinator.com