484
Graham Platner welcomes attacks from 'fascists and bigots' over his support for trans rights
(www.advocate.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
484 points (98.6% liked)
politics
30195 readers
2510 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Not really, the differences just aren't that large in general. The average black woman has a lower testosterone count than the average man, but a fairly large portion of the spread of black women is still higher than the average to lower end of the spread for men. And even the spread between white men and women has plenty of overlap where there are women with higher testosterone levels than men, and that's just within one specific race.
Black women have testosterone counts high enough to get them frequently banned from the Olympics. Two time gold medal winner Caster Semenya has been banned since 2019 because her natural testosterone levels are considered too high and "give her an unfair advantage."
Besides, trans women tend to have lower testosterone counts than cis women, because they take medication that reduces your body's ability to intake testosterone as it takes up the same receptors as estrogen. This means that cis women build muscle more easily than trans women.
Caster Semenya has 5α-Reductase 2 deficiency (5αR2D) a condition which results in high testosterone. Consequently, she is not a normal woman.
And Michael Phelps has a condition that causes him to build up lactic acid at half the normal rate, effectively doubling his endurance compared to his competitors. And yet he's allowed to hold the world record for the most gold medals won. Sports have never been about "normal" people.
And Caster is far from the only black woman to face these kinds of punishments. In fact, not only does the Olympics have a history of racism and sexism against black women, but all three medalists were affected by the ban on Caster that year. Christine Mboma and Beatrice Basilingi were banned in 2021 for their "naturally high testosterone." It's a frequently occurring reason for banning black women from sports. All of them were told they could either take drugs to lower their testosterone, you know, the kind that trans women take, or undergo surgery to reduce their "naturally high testosterone" to "acceptable levels". Understandably, none of them did. Especially not when men and white women don't face the same kind of scrutiny. In fact, historically gender tests have often targeted female athletes of color who don’t conform to typically Western, white ideals of femininity. Serena Williams. Brittney Griner. Indian sprinter Dutee Chand. Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-Ting. Algerian boxer Imane Khelif. The list never ends, and we haven't even gotten to when the Olympics used to do chromosome testing in the 60s and gave up due to the extremely high number of woman athletes who came up as XY women.
Also, the European Court of Human Rights later ruled that Caster's ban was discrimination.
-Simone Biles, Olympic Gymnast
Sounds a lot like the criticism levied against trans athletes.