The Culture

The Fallout From the Lia Thomas Situation

March 28, 2022 Jeff and Anthony Episode 88
The Culture
The Fallout From the Lia Thomas Situation
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Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

In this episode the guys tackle a very polarizing topic in light of the Lia Thomas controversy, should transgendered athletes be allowed to participate in women competitions? A very sensitive subject that should and needs to be discussed, respectfully.

Topics Discussed:

  • Lia Thomas
  • Is it fair for transgendered to compete against women?
  • Rachel Levine
  • Nyla Rose
  • Caster Semenya
  • Laila Ali
  • Backlash towards transgendered women receiving awards

Referenced Links:
#greenscreen This conversation is just starting to heat up #lesbiansoftiktok #lgbt🌈 #gaytok #transgender #transwoman #trans

NCAA Swimmer Who Finished Behind Lia Thomas Releases Statement (thespun.com)

Twitter suspends Babylon Bee over Rachel Levine 'Man of the Year' title (nypost.com)

Gender identity: Is it a mental disorder? | HCA Virginia

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Jeff:

real quick and you know, this episode is once again sponsored by hydronic. hydration. And I just wanted to give you all my experience with the product cuz I ordered mine on Amazon and I've been taking it for about a week now, I received the elderberry flavor. I don't know what the fucking elderberry is, but the shit is purple. And it should taste good as hell. I've been pouring into packets into a water bottle. And I've been drinking either before to gym during my workout or just randomly throughout the day. I'll tell you this shit is refreshing, delicious, and definitely helps you get, you know, helps you stay hydrated and feel like you're not managing bottom line. So it keeps me energized, the fact that it's healthy. And all of that is just an extra bonus. I can vouch and I did vouch for this supplement. I just wanted to say that, I'll give a shout out to the good folks at hydronic hydration. But alright, let's get this episode started.

Unknown:

So me being the I'm always poking the bear. And I was really curious to see what would happen. So I congratulated Leah Thomas, on being the first transgender woman to woman to win a national championship. And let's just say those 728 comments did not share my congratulations. Now. This is a very complicated issue. I understand this. I actually interviewed Elena della Don. And her comment was like if you think that people are transitioning to get a competitive advantage. That's not why they're doing that. That doesn't change the fact that there is a competitive advantage. I get it. But I'm also curious as to what people think their solution should be for this. But if you think your solution is keep everything the same? Well, the only thing that's constant is change. So if we're not evolving, while change is happening, we're missing the boat. So I'm really curious. And I know that 98% of my followers are men. So hopefully this gets on the other side of TiC tock and we can get a diverse conversation going be nice.

Jeff:

That was Richard Jefferson discussing his thoughts on the whole Lia Thomas situation. So that just gives you an idea. What are we going to be talking about today on this episode, Episode 88 of the culture, shout out to our culture crew, aka our patrons.

Anthony:

That name just makes me laugh. It just does. It's on Sesame Street. But it's cool though.

Jeff:

Who's named Coach,

Anthony:

the coach or crew? Coach or CRO like they should all come running out? Wasn't none that the Mickey Mouse Club they all come out run out in the shirts like Justin, Britney.

Jeff:

So yeah, very polarizing topic. Today on the show. Anthony was even hesitant to talk about this. He asked me several times are you sure you want to touch on this? Oh, it's cool said why not? I mean, we're not gonna offend anybody. Or at least we're gonna try not to,

Anthony:

you're afraid to go to somebody I know, friend, our friend, Jim tell people like, well, because?

Jeff:

Well, because the way it is nowadays, in this culture, society, you know, this canceled culture, even if you're inadvertently, you know, you can inadvertently offend somebody without wanting to or without meaning to, you know, I'm saying, I've always wondered

Anthony:

about that, though. But who have we honestly think about whoever we successfully canceled?

Jeff:

That's a good, that's a good point. You can't even try to cancel people

Anthony:

can't say our Kelly, he went to prison. It gets everywhere. He went to jail. It was the people that committed crimes, right. But everyone else has been saying things like, if you're trying to cancer you but Tucker Carlson has a whole last show. He says, wow, I've knocked things all the time. This cancer thing just doesn't work. It just a term people use.

Jeff:

Well, let's get to it, though. Because the question that we're going to pose and maybe tried to answer Sure. Is, should transgender athletes be allowed to participate in female competitions? Or maybe just in competitions, period? Is that safe? Was

Anthony:

that fair? Okay, so I guess my because the

Jeff:

competitive advantage that they seem to have is only you know, in the female categories, running, swimming, etc.

Anthony:

Right. Not another's, it makes it builds an individual's sports. Right. Right. Right. So so we're speaking of trend transgender athletes. We're not speaking of team sports, when I speaking of anything to that degree, and as a matter of fact, we're only talking about male or female, not female than male. Yes.

Jeff:

I mean, obviously, this is in, in light of the Leah Thomas situation has been a lot of backlash about it. For those that don't know, are the knees of Recap, you know, Leah Thomas is a Olympic swimmer. She is advanced, a transgender female. She was formerly known as William Thomas, and she swam, you know, for the men's and in the men's teams, or whatnot. He ranked number 462 among the men, she transgender she she transitioned and she is now Leah Thomas. And she is now ranked number one on the women's swimming. And there's been all this backlash not only from the runners up, you know, the women that are the girls that came in second and third, but from people in general, like you know, and there's two sides obviously, there's some they're saying, you know, the pro choice and There's the anti, you know, I'm saying, and I've heard them all, I've read them all online. You know, I've heard all the opinions. And the backlash is Leah Thomas, you know, biologically born, a male has a massive advantage over these women or over these girls that she's competing against. And this topic is so polarizing, that I tried to get people from the LGBTQ plus community to come on this episode, respectfully and talk about it with us. I've tried rich, I've reached out to transgender individuals. So again, respectfully, you know, come on and discuss this topic with us. And that was turned down time after time. Nobody wanted to touch this subject. So that gave me an idea of how polarizing the topic is even more than you know why, what I initially thought it was it my thing is this. If people from their own community don't want to talk about this, how the fuck are we supposed to talk about it? Well, should

Anthony:

we go and try?

Jeff:

I mean, fuck yeah, we're gonna try.

Anthony:

I mean, it's not at all right. We're over complicating the shit in my brain, I'm going to put on my thinking cap. It's not as hard as people are making it out to be because the only time it really matters is when is this such a distinct advantage? People raise all sorts of hell. Now, I'm not going to speak on the delay of Tom situation. I'm seeing it in sports in general, when there is a very distinct Advent or an assumed distinct advantage. We all go to a fucking Tizzy about it. few examples, remember? How can I go? Remember, remember, the lockout a couple years ago, now in baseball, there was a bunch of baseball players going through a whole shifting of their bodies. Sammy Sosa look bigger market wireless, bigger. It was pretty obvious to everybody. But nobody knew. But like we knew, but we didn't really say, right. So you run into that situation. You have this going on? Not a big deal. You guys save baseball, you brought back to racing and so forth. Now, Barry Bonds as the kind of thing, because obviously he seems bigger he seems from he's hitting more home runs is becoming an issue. And then now, it seems kind of you know, tricky. Now you're kind of violating the rules of the sport. Now something is off. Now, there's an advantage that you have, that no one else should have. And everyone falls apart of it. Even if it doesn't involve performance enhancing drugs. Shit, Kevin Durant going to the Warriors, it does seem like this great advantage. It's unfair. Why are you able to do this, but then you are. But that's the only time. So if someone's transitioning, and they've done everything that you're supposed to, in regards to the rules that everyone else has said, you have to spend a year and the gender of the optics mean, the clothing and everything else like that you go through the surgery, if that's the choice, at that point, you go through the hormone therapy and everything else like that. And by their own definition, that set forth. This is your A woman should be allowed to do and compete in these things. I understand the frustration of what it might be because out of the blue team, this person comes in here and dominates this. But in reality, if they didn't cheat, like they followed the rules as art, the NCAA does not ban transgender athletes, they shouldn't either. But to make a big deal about this and everyone just getting up in a bunch of body. It confuses me. It's actually kind of frustrating. But I'll leave it up to you. Let me let you jump on this real

Jeff:

quick. I'll say this. Nothing against transgendered and against the LGBTQ plus community, they should be allowed to participate in sports, etc. What I will say and it's not Leah Thomas's fault is not in I'm saying the system is fucked. Obviously, they have to come to a decision, you know, whoever's in charge of these things, is gonna eventually have to have a meeting and figure out what the answer is. I don't have the answer. I'm sure you don't have the answer. But do these athletes have a competitive advantage? Do they have a physical advantage? Are they sometimes stronger, taller, faster than the people that they're competing against? The answer is yes. It's a fact. For the most part, obviously, there's going to be exceptions. But like I like I told you before, Leah Thomas wasn't even in the top 400 in the male competition. Now she's competing against the females. She's ranked number one, and if you've seen the races, she's she's winning. She's winning decisively. It's not even close. And yeah, she's taller than the rest of the girls and you know, there's obviously there's tall girls, so I can't You can't use that against her. But she's also faster, stronger, is you know, is everything so now, the argument becomes you know, people start feeling bad for like the runners up the people that came in second and all They're like, Oh, you know they work their asses off all year and they're going to lose to you know this person and they see it as cheating. I saw I saw a sign that somebody posted up that said women's sport is not a retirement plan for failed male athletes and of course you know that common got all hell up backlash and all types of you know, it should have Yeah, sure, but the chick but then I'm gonna I'm gonna read you the chick that came in second. NCAA swimmer who finished behind Lee Thomas she released a statement and if you don't mind I want to read it. Yes, Virginia Tech swimmer Rica, Georgie and I'm gonna probably missed her name. So she released a full statement on the NCAA allowing Leah Thomas to compete in the 500 freestyle. She was 17th in the event Okay, here we go. She were like a whole letter. She was 17th

Anthony:

sort of said let me just read a narrative talking 17 magazine. She was second to third you 17th. I got it.

Jeff:

She goes before you read any further, I'd like to ask that everyone who wants to decimate my statement would agree to release my statement in full. I do not want any partial releases of my statement and do not wish to make further comments. Dear NCAA, I would like to address this past week's events and express my thoughts. First, I would like to remind everyone that I am a human being and that as a human being, I experience feelings and emotions. My name is Reka Georgie from Hungary, Hungary, or Hungarian. I am a 2016 Rio Olympian representative Virginia Tech for the past five years a two time ACC champion two time all American and three time honorable mention All American. With all due respect, I would like to address something that is a problem in our sport right now and hurting athletes, especially female swimmers. Everyone has heard and known about transgender Leah Thomas and her case, including all the issues and concerns that her situation brought into our sport. I'd like to point out that I respect and fully stand with Leah Thomas, I'm convinced that she is no different than me, or any other D one swimmer who has woken up at 5am Her entire life for morning practices. She has sacrificed family vacations and holidays for a competition, she has pushed herself to the limit to be the best athlete she could be. She is doing what she is passionate about and deserves the right. On the other hand, I would like to critique the NCAA rules that allow her to compete against us who are biologically women. I'm writing this letter right now in hopes that the NCAA will open their eyes and change their rules in the future. It doesn't promote our sport in a good way. And I think it's disrespectful against the biologically female swimmers who are competing in the NCAA, I swam the 500, free at at NC double A's on March 17 2022, where I got 17, which means I didn't make it back to the finals. And was first alternate. I'm a fifth year senior I have been top 16 and top eight before and I know how much of a privilege it is to make finals at a meet this big. This is my last college meet ever. And I feel frustrated. It feels like the final spot was taken away from me because of the NCAA decision to let someone who is not a biological female compete. And now you could say I had the opportunity to swim faster and make the top 16. But this situation makes it a bit different. And I can't help but be angry or sad. And it hurts me. My team and other women in the pool. One SPA was taken away from the girl who got ninth in the 500 free and didn't make it back to the to the a final preventing her from being an All American. Every event that transgender athletes compete in was one spot taken away from biological females throughout the meet and quote, hmm, I mean, I get it, I guess Yeah, I can I can understand your foot both sides. Say, I don't know what it's a

Anthony:

slippery slope. My friend what university? Did she go to?

Jeff:

Virginia Beach. Okay,

Anthony:

so she's going to Virginia Tech. School the cost like what $30,000 A year, you get, you're going to high level education, you're asking going into swim, you're going there to learn some shit. That's the point of college. Like if you just want to be a swimmer, you can just try to go in and compete into meeting just try to join the Olympic team. Sure. But everyone said like that you're taking away opportunities. Now you got to just as much a shot at everybody else. But like I said, this only matters when transgender people when it only matters then, for example, there's a weightlifter in New Zealand, who's transgender. Like I said, we're talking about the physical advantages, shrimp size, whatever, that transition from male to female, and it was in the Olympics. And they didn't even make it out of the first round. No one talked about that. No one talked to transgender person last week. So they had these advantages. You you're a guy, now your girls will have this natural strength and so on and so forth. They made it to the Olympic didn't make it out of their first lift period. But we don't mention that because like I said, it's not it's always when they're like you succeed. You're taking away opportunities for people. But when you fail, nobody mentioned it. My whole thing is I'm looking at from both sides, absolutely, the person wins, and they follow the rules and the guidelines. And this is what it says, Cool. I understand that a person wrote a very impassioned letter pleading to the NCAA about this, that's not going to happen, they're not going to change their rules to do this, especially, even though it's supposed to be for college athletes, I think they kind of enjoy, like, the interest in the business and might drum up all the other stuff doesn't really matter to them, to talk about it to the cows come home, but in reality, there's no thing as bad publicity to them. They loved it like before this, did you actually ever even get one single? I don't know of a thought about women's swimming in the NCAA? No, right. But it's something that causes kind of that everybody's talking about it. And let's say if Leah has another meat, it wouldn't surprise me that pops up on ESPN or something else like that, because it says it's quote unquote, controversial, but it said don't give a damn by that data started paying, finding ways to get college athletes paid, even though they made millions upon millions upon their backs, for decades. So they expect them right. It'll definitely be televised. Yeah. So it had to be the arbiters of like, a fairness and fair play. And in truth, it's not going to happen. So I mean, they're gonna, you know, keep kicking Leah back in a bad situation. But I'm like, you guys kind of worried about the wrong thing, or I'll go a little bit further into it. But I want you to go into let me hear your thoughts.

Jeff:

Well, my question to you is, though, is it fair do you think is fair? Do they have to transgenders have a competitive advantage? They can to other women that they're playing against? They

Anthony:

can't? If if there is a how do I describe it? A, a quantifiable level of hormones between testosterone and estrogen in your body and your have to be at a particular level to be considered, I guess you would say, biologically at this point, a woman, all right, you can kind of go right on ahead with it. And again, the whole thing, why I'm not arguing shit, because it's the rule the rules of what they say. And again, it only matters because the person won. If Leah woulda lost, no one would care is that Leah came out and they smoked, and they're like, no, they have certain advantages, they would have lost, this wouldn't be a story like that actually, would have been probably the opposite. Because of the way men think. And people are like, look at you, you transition to woman to try to win some you still can't win. I don't think someone's trying to transition to a whole nother gender to win a sport, somebody only lasts a particular lifetime, and a very, very, very short window of a lifetime, like you're making a choice to redefine yourself as a completely different human. And that is a very difficult choice that people have to make, to think that someone's going to do this just for like, the prospect of winning an NCAA title. I can see if you were doing that, and maybe when viewed like the greatest WNBA player of all time, but it's swimming. It's it's, it's it's smaller individual sports that in the grand scheme of things, well, not really going to short life, it doesn't really matter, like, like we really stressing about the wrong thing. Like if these are the rules, and that's what they say, you decide to play within those rules fairly, you don't do any, take any any other advantage besides what you naturally have, and what they say whatever the guidelines are in regards to hormone levels, and so on so forth, you're eligible, I'm not going to fight anybody on this. I'm not gonna say like, well should be more feminine. No, like they're trying to do to be more masculine can only build up too much muscle because that's what you build. If you're going to take all these things and become less whatnot. Let's eliminate and so anybody, you're going to just transition and you want to still do to want to do you should be able to do that. Let's put it that way. So now, I think it's fair. So

Jeff:

they do so they do test to test their own levels and things like that. Okay, so now it's fun. It's you know, apropos that you mentioned that because now I want to mention the runner Caster Semenya, so mania or hypomania, she's 31. She was born a biological woman from South Africa at South Africa. But she was recently denied the chance to compete in the Tokyo Olympics because they said she was too manly or to man that Manish, they want her to take medicine to lower her naturally gifted testosterone since she refused. She's not allowed to compete with other women. But her case is a little different because she was born. I don't want to say hermaphrodite, but the correct term is intersex. She's an intersex woman. She was assigned female at birth with the X Y chromosomes and naturally elevated testosterone levels caused by the presence of internal testes. But she has a vagina you see what I'm saying? So she had you know, whatever at birth she had got hormones or whatever they call it. Now, following her victory at the 2009 World Championships, she was made to undergo sex testing, and unclear to return to competition the following year. Now in 2019, New World athletic rules came into force preventing women likes ammonia from participating in 400 meter, 800 meter and 1500 meter events in the female classification unless they take medication to suppress their testosterone. levels and 2021 she filed an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights against the restrictions. So see so how is that different? You don't I'm saying like which one is fair out of the two situate? Which one is not fair which one is by it? You don't I mean, like it's, that's when it becomes tricky. Ah, she's biologically a female now, he has the female anatomy, but she was born with a condition where, you know, I'm saying she had elevated testosterone levels. She was you know, stronger than the average female etc. Leah calm now they're preventing her from competing because she they think she has an advantage. So how is that different? From the LIA Thomas situation? Lia Thomas is asking the question, you know, I'm saying I'm not again, I got I got I feel like I got to continue to sleep prefix that when I hit a judge when I hit offend you were just posing a question and discussing the topic. I wanted to get transgender people on the show, they refused to come on, if they didn't fear of whatever fear of whatever being bashed. And I specifically told people like, Look, we're not here to bash we're not we're just gonna have a conversation. You know, and we just want to hear the from, from your perspective on the other side, you know, saying there was like, Yeah, I'm gonna respectfully decline because I don't want to touch on this. I don't feel come from one person told me it was a transgender man. I don't feel comfortable touching on that topic. I was like, wow.

Anthony:

Maybe they feel

Jeff:

that polarizing. They don't maybe I should that controversial.

Anthony:

Maybe they feel like any kind of comment that does not support it feels like they're going against their community, which is understandable. But no matter what, no matter your gender reach a six color, you are entitled to an opinion, even if I disagree with that, even the people in my community disagree with it is my opinion. So the thing said about Leah and as caster, right cast her as a somebody, I think somewhat disagree. Yeah. So So Leah situation is fine. Cast the situation is wrong. The reason why is because Leah made a particular choice about changing their gender. And the other situation that was something outside of their control, like I literally have both options. Not really, I just happen to have both male and female sex organs, right. And like I decided to go a different way and my actual physiological being in my body, just matter what I do, I'm just going to have naturally higher enhanced testosterone and other people, there's nothing that you can do about it without taking more and more drugs. So that situation is kind of different, because like it wasn't it, they were trying to decide between two things that Whitley was like, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to try this out and go with it from there and call it a day. But outside of that, that's how it's got to be. It's good question that, let me think about that.

Jeff:

And before we take a break, I want to take a break and come back. And I want to just read you some of the comments that people are saying some of the different opinions. I think one of the main issues is that there's not enough information, there's no rules for this kind of stuff. You know, there's a lot of naivete, you know, people were just not educated. You're not I'm saying enough to really make concise opinions, I feel like, and let me read you a little excerpt from an article that I'll post on the show notes so that people can see, historically, the medical community community classified gender dysphoria as a mental disorder, this is what they use, you know, the, the medical community, this is what they used to consider, you know, transgender, they used to consider it as a mental illness, a mental disorder. Yes. Now, research and compassion led the World Health Organization to remove gender nonconformity from its list of mental disorders and its global manual of diagnosis in 2019. So just a couple of years ago, this is relatively new stuff. They finally took it off the list of things that they would consider a mental disorder, there was like I we really don't, you know, we need to learn more about this. And this move should prompt governments to reform National Medical Systems and laws in light of the outdated diagnosis. The article continues on to say, but change is slow, the daily distress of the suffering takes a toll. Some estimates say as many as 71% of those with gender dysphoria will also have a mental health diagnosis in their lifetime. That includes mood disorders, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, and suicide attempts. treatments available, therefore, are not focused on changing the person but lessening their distress. And you could argue that, you know, their stresses and it's, you know, because of the, the things that they have to deal with in society, you know, the bullying, the backlash, the harassment, you know, I'm saying you can argue that that's those are the things that are causing their issues, but not necessarily because they are who they are. Does that make sense?

Anthony:

Yeah. And, and that's a real probably function of reason why somebody didn't want to come in come on here because they didn't want to, you know, deal with that. They probably wanted to say something. But like I said, they don't want to deal with someone. Because I know. No, yeah, no, she is. I know someone that did transit, transit. just going from female to male, but they're very particular about who they tell him. Like who they make clear about it because fear of backlash and whatever it might be so I understand but

Jeff:

let's take a quick break and come back with some recent comments and dive in a little bit more.

Unknown:

Thanks for listening to the culture podcast. We'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors.

Jeff:

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Jeff:

We represent a culture to represent like the culture podcast Alright, so let's continue with this because like I said, I feel like this is a what's definitely a polarizing topic, but I felt like it was an interesting topic and I felt like we should discuss it you know, saying and although I couldn't get anybody to come on here and discuss it with us, I think maybe you could hold

Anthony:

it down. That's what we're going to do so

Jeff:

now Staying on the topic of transgenders there's another transgender that people are up in arms about and that's Rachel livan she's a Biden administration official. She works on the Department of Health and Human Services. She was named Woman of the Year by USA Today. Congratulations and there was a right leaning parody site by the name of the Babylon be

Anthony:

Fango involved a match or trying to ice skate uphill

Jeff:

Yeah, they considered they they called Levi the Man of the Year and as a result Twitter locked their account

Anthony:

you know what a quick sidebar see is decayed like this that I hate to do, but you see them they're trying to take away our freedom of speech like no, there's rules decayed. Do shit like this. We made it real clear. Like that's hate speech. You know the person's a woman you just try to be funny and cute about it. You're not a comedian shut fuck up. That's why you got banned for 24 hours continue to

Jeff:

read the New York Post article said the Babylon B story was a reaction to USA Today's naming of livan who is us Assistant Secretary for Health for the US Department of Health and Human Services, and one of its Women of the Year last week. Twitter says it will restore the account which has more than 1.3 million followers if the bee deletes the tweet, but CEO Seth Dillon says he has no intention of doing so. We're not deleting anything. Dylan tweeted from his personal account. Truth is not hate speech, if the cost of telling the truth is the loss of our Twitter account and so be it. The band article notes that Levi's serves proudly as the first man in that position to dress like a western cultural stereotype of a woman. He is also an admiral in the US Public Health Service Commissioned corpse what a boss it says he often wears a dress which some people think is weird, but he doesn't care one bit the article continues come on man in India wear dress type garments, don't they? I mean, obviously is a parody site or whatnot. But shit. That was driven everybody

Anthony:

want to be a comedian? Everybody, everybody, then they want to they want to backtrack or some shit and they want to have it as a point to stand upon. You've made a mistake. You were trying to say I'm trying to be funny. I apologize. It's simple. That's it. Yeah, sometimes your jokes don't land but they want to make it an issue. But it's people but

Jeff:

the people that I see complaining the most about these things are actual women are the women. And I can't tell you that I can't understand them. You know, I'm saying like, I can see both sides. I can play devil's advocate. And when you hear the words Women complaining about Leah Thomas about Rachel livan about Caitlyn Jenner. Even Caitlyn Jenner when she came out years ago, she was named you know, a woman of the year as well. Remember that she was getting ESPY awards and all types of awards and other women were in battle. They were backlash. And again, they were like, You know what the fuck like, you know, we're over here working hard. And you got this guy transitions to a woman and he's taking our wars type shit. These are the you know, these are the arguments I was I was hearing. In the professional wrestling world, you have a wrestler by the name of Nyla rose, and she's a transgender woman, you know what I'm saying. And when you see her competing against other women, wrestlers, you clearly can see the size advantage. She's obviously you know, taller, stronger, but she looked like she should be competing against the men. And I wouldn't even have a problem obviously, as a professional wrestling out in that type of, you know, scenario, I wouldn't have a problem seeing a Nyla rose competing against the other male wrestlers, you know, I'm saying because it just looks, it looks a certain way, when you see her competing against the female wrestlers. And you know, she's overwhelmingly bigger. And when she's out there, you know, obviously the deck, they're not going to make her win all the matches, because obviously, there's going to probably be backlash against that already. They're not going to make her win all the, you know, the women championships and stuff like that. So she's, you know, she takes her share of losses. But it just, you know, you know, scripted. So I'm not going to compare this to like, you know, NCAA swimming or running or actual sports, right, but just the optics of it. If she loses to these women, it looks funny, that she beats the women that she you know, then you're gonna hear the backlash, like, Oh, she's really a man type of shit, you know, I'm saying. So it puts companies in a lose lose situation.

Anthony:

Does it though? Like, like, you can't really fail at it. I mean, okay, so let's take the Woman of the Year. And I understand how someone could be regionally mine, sorry, I want to make sure it's seated properly. The fact that she was a woman a year doesn't really have anything, dude, that she's transgender. Well, it touched me. Let me let me not be disingenuous about that. That probably helped a little bit. Because it's, you know, it's different. It's courageous. But I mean, there was an appointment by President Biden, it was a presidential choice. And they had to be good at what they did, no matter what gender they were. And the fact that they felt that they excelled at what they were doing, made them a choice a woman of the year, as a matter of fact, I in all honesty, I know of Miss Levine. It's kind of it kind of deals with a greater question about the unimportance of women in society, because like I said, they named Miss living into that war, like, who would like you name any of them? Leave? I'm sorry. Miss livan? Can you name any of the other contenders? No. Right now, it was just a woman who wasn't transgender, who won this award? Would anyone care? No, no. And I mean, I'm not saying that to denigrate that population not to say that at all, I'm saying that it does come in handy. That's gonna ban because there are certain things that can be made and put forward. These people are progressing, they are making change, no matter what it is. The fact that we had to kind of constantly argue about whether someone is someone not like, Look, if there are rules that come into play, that make you something and you follow said rules, and you become something, therefore you are that thing. I'm going to begin with like something in general. If you are not a US citizen, and you come to this country, and you are here, the expected amount of time that you're supposed to be consistently, I think it's 10 years, I'm like that you're here that whole time, at the end of that you are a US citizen, you're not like a guy who came from Mexico, and all of a sudden you really from there, but now you spent time here now your assistant, no, the rule state, if you do this, at ABC to get XYZ, then you get the end result. Now you're a citizen. Now you're a woman. Now, you might be whatever you want to be. But the whole thing is that you can't change the rules, just because there's one thing I know her a lot of people saying like no, this should just be like transgender sports. No, because that's, that's a form of discrimination. He's putting these people, I'm only going to say these, because I'm not saying how their pronouns are going to be, like just isolating a very particular population that they can only do this. And like I said, I'm doing this No, for my own band, not necessarily for sports. I happen to play sports, I'm not gonna be doing it forever. Eventually, I'm going to have to live the rest of my life as a man or as a woman. Period. Regardless of sports. Like I said, the only time we actually give a shit about this is when it comes to the unfairness of athletics, but we don't talk about the unfairness of women's pay. We don't misunderstand, like the understanding how women are mistreated, in general, like so we're not like, we're not gonna talk about it today, but kind of the whole John Watson situation, yeah, something like that. Like it's 22 women that kind of came for this thing. And the whole thing is that, you know, we're acting like we don't believe them. But even Cleveland does, because, I mean, they adjusted his contract where it's gonna be minimum For the first year could expect him to be to spend it for what happened. Like I said, you still know shooting women in acid and stuff. And then we're worried about like, Well, what about the unfairness of transgender people like it's unfairness for people all around? So to make this one simple argument about one simple thing about one simple athletic accomplishment, doesn't really like move my soul to make me think like, this is unfair, because there are rules, and you shouldn't change those rules, just for one person. But what I'm saying is that if this is what's in place, and this is what's been followed, you shouldn't like bank or denigrate the person for following set rule, period.

Jeff:

All right, let me go read some comments that I saw on Facebook, and most of the comments that I'm going to read, I got consent, I received consent to you know, put these people out there and give their name. This one is not one of them. So I'm not gonna mention the person's name, but it was a female. And she said, Be whomever, whatever you want to be, I literally do not care that's between you and God. But damn, at what point do we as a society draw the line in the sand, my heart breaks for the hard working women who have given their heart and soul to their crafts, only to come in second place to a biologically born male. Delete me, I don't care this is wrong. And then a gentleman by the name of John root, posted a picture of Rachel Levi, insane woman of the year is a man and then a picture of Leah Thomas saying best women's NCAA swimmer is a man. And, of course, you go to the comments, and there's hella backlash. But it's just an idea of how you know how women are how, sir, I'm not gonna say all people have the same opinion, but how certain people, you know, think about the situation. And I have another example, I mentioned the pro wrestler, have another example. Laila Ali, professional boxer, daughter of Muhammad Ali, when she came into the boxing game, there was literally nobody to compete with her. She was just genetically superior. She was taller than all the girls she was fighting against. She was stronger. She was more skilled. Right? Right. She beat everybody. They literally had nobody else to put against her. So she just retired. And, you know, nobody was saying, Oh, it's unfair. She has a competitive advantage. You don't I'm saying? Mm hmm. But when you watch her matches you like shit. This is this is no, she, there's nobody that you could put against this, this woman. Because she's just that superior. That's the period right, more gifted, more stronger, tall everything than any other boxer that they're going to put against it. Now, nobody was saying she should go box against men.

Anthony:

Correct, either. Like, she just had a very particular advantage against everybody else. And that's how it goes. Like, we're all women. I just happen to be a little bit faster, stronger, and more agile than you are. So if we do this one thing, I'm probably going to smoke you. But I met you put we put a golf club in hanshi. Like I haven't, I can hit this ball at all. I can't do it. I seem super athletic. Do just you just can't hit a damn golf ball. can dunk can hit threes cannot hit a golf ball is ridiculous, right? So not not all things being equal. Just because you're physically superior doesn't mean that you're going to be gifted in everything you do in regards to physicality. Just have to be very dominant in that sport. Like, we're talking about leotard like, it's like the holy Thomas thing, like Oh, pull this up real quick. Okay, so they, Leah Thomas, one of the 500, right, and they said that in a preliminary for the 200 finished second in a finals for the free hat 200 Freestyle finished fifth and a 100. Finish 10th and final for the 100 finished eighth out of eight. It's only because they won one race in this long distance rate, which is 500 meters. So it's what 10 times back and forth. So I'm like Are y'all making a yet because they won this one thing. So again, if Leah Thomas never wins, it doesn't come store, they win one thing, but they lost all the other shit, right? Are you talking about that? Like, like, that's the point I'm trying to understand about this whole thing about being dominant like, and I said, according to the college swimming Data database, Thomas is ranked 36 amongst female college roommates in the United States. It's not a massive advantage, right? And all of a sudden, that transition didn't make them the best women's swimmer of all time. They lost a fuck ton of races. They won one. One. What are the long distance rates? What you might be able to make the argument in regards to being transgender because if you have slightly more muscle mass, you probably have slightly more muscle endurance.

Jeff:

I felt like I feel like height would be a big advantage in these races. No.

Anthony:

I mean, I mean, I mean, Kayla deck is pretty tall too. Yeah. But I mean, even when you're even when your height as you can see from the what I talked about the records, they were still getting smoked. Like there was a blow the women off the board. They they are taller, they are faster. I guess you're saying that because they were genetically predisposed men, but they're not going out here smoking them. It's not happening. But we're taking this one little thing and making this one big ass argument about it. When in reality, just not the truth. They won one race and kind of like it's like a long distance swimming meet more than anything else. They didn't beat the ones where it requires actual strength and speed, like the 100 In 200, that requires a lot of muscle and requires to be very strong and very fast. The thing that you would think that Leah would have a neck lift Manjit, not true, like, from the steps got smoked Nerys, you figured it'd be one of the best in the world at 3636 Not top 10 Not top 20/35 You know how we like lift here? 36? Yep, it was 30 Don't sound cool number.

Jeff:

Let me read. Let me read another comment. And I should have probably started the episode with a disclaimer, because this might be insensitive to some. And the topic itself that we're discussing on this episode. It's, it's polarizing, and it's, you know, it's gonna be difficult, difficult and might be offensive to some. It's a very sensitive topic, but a gentleman by the name of Brandon, right, posted and this is gonna be a very long statement he posted being self employed. I've learned through the years that it's in the best interest of my business, to not comment on political matters. But as the father of a little girl Enough is enough.

Anthony:

Time, time, time time. Jesus Christ, you cannot leave in saying I shouldn't talk about political matters, but continue.

Jeff:

And I find this to like if people that have daughters, this hits them a little bit different this type of topics you don't I'm saying they're going to be more outspoken about but anyway, he continues and says Leah Thomas became the first biologically born male to win the women's national championship in the 500 yard freestyle. Tom is standing at six foot four, God Damn, she's taller than what I thought I knew she was you know, she had a height advantage of all the other women. That's why I said height, you know, could probably be the biggest advantage that she has, you know, when we type. So she goes Thomas, standing at six foot tall was born with male chromosomes male bone structure, and went through puberty with male sex hormones. To think that this didn't give Leah an incredible advantage is absurd. I'm 100% for equality. I don't care if you're male, female, black, white, straight or gay. I believe everyone should be treated fairly. I have clients who fall under each of these categories. And they will vouch for me, however, as the father of a little girl who in their right mind thinks this is okay. How would you recommend Icahn School my daughter after she was beat by someone who was born a boy for all of my little iEX supporters? How is this okay? If you're a man and you want to become a woman cool if you're a woman and want to become a man cool. If you're a man who becomes a woman and you wish to compete in athletic events against naturally born females, I have a problem. You have a God given advantage that simply cannot be overlooked. I wish you a lifetime of happiness with your decision. But you have to place you have no place and competing against biologically born female. We as a society need to stand up for the rights and values of naturally born females. This is absurd. And then you don't even want to look at the comments. And you know, I'll read some somebody put yuck too much of a coward to compete with men. And that was a female who wrote that. Most of these are female, I have to agree with you. This is where I draw the line and the reality of competitive sports. It is just not fair. Never Okay, as a mother of four girls and grandmother of 11 It's okay to be okay with you without, with who you feel you are, but don't impose this on my kids. And if I find you in the women's bathroom, then yes, I will kick you out. And that goes on and on and on. And most of the comments 90% of the comments are women.

Anthony:

Oh, wow, that now? Why don't give a fuck about sports though. That's the shit that irritated

Jeff:

me. I don't think it's more about sports than it is about the social commentary of the whole situation. You know, I'm saying

Anthony:

that because their whole thing. They're bitching about fairness, right? The key thing that they're trying to get across that it is unfair. Right. And it's sports. And again, the point I tried to make is like, Leah Thomas won one race they got she got smoked and all the others. One race. Yeah, one, right. I'm going to be a father of a daughter, or the mother of a daughter, because this is, like I said, Trent thing about transgender like it actually swings both ways. It always becomes an issue when it's a male and female and that female and male, that if you're worried about the fairness, or the or the inherent unfairness because the advantage that men have in sports, you're going about this the wrong way. You're arguing about the wrong thing. It's a biggest issue as all it is, and I'll try to make these points as quickly as possible. i You're complaining about I need for people to show the same type of energy about Leah Thomas and whatever feelings they may have towards her that they shouldn't have about Brittney Griner being held in a Russian prison. Like who the natural woman who is those who is who is lesbian who is very upfront about her sexuality. I think you guys have same energy for her to bring her home. If you're gonna have the same kind of energy complaining about the the getting the athletic part, which is kind of stupid, because it's the sports doesn't really matter to me. I need you to show that same type of energy when it comes to the WNBA where it's all women, but they get paid way less than the men. That's why Britain right was in Russia, because she that's how she has to make her money, because they won't pay her here, why women in the WNBA have to take charter flights, like buy a ticket and get on a plane and not have, you know, the luxuries that the men have like, and again, they're tall women to their 68676 Not six, whatever. But they got to squeeze into like a business class seat, but he's long ass legs. And like that That's unfair. Don't talk about that complain about the the still this massive gap and women's pay compared to men? If you're doing everything equally, why aren't women paid the same, but you're worried about this one meet this one person, again, who won one single race and got smoked and all of the others? Well, you can say that and all you want to complain about that. But again, you're still getting paid way less than men. Just because you're a woman? Well, you're going to do better, this isn't worth your

Jeff:

time to go to the WNBA argument, they would argue that the WNBA doesn't bring in as much revenue as the NBA does. So that would be the argument as to why, you know, I'm saying whether it's true or not, whether it's right or wrong. But what do you think so what's the answer, though? Do you think transgenders should be allowed to compete against women? Are you okay? Would you be okay with transgender men competing against men and men competitions? Or we're going to limit it to certain sports, or we're going to limit it to only swimming, running and things like that, but non non contact sports? Would you be okay with a transgender competing in mixed martial arts, boxing, wrestling?

Anthony:

Football? I think? No, I don't. Again, my whole thing is this if the rules state that this is allowable, and like I said, you're creating to have fairness for everybody, you can't eliminate certain things just because and I'm saying this as a perspective of a black person, when it kind of tried to eliminate it from sports, because they figured that we were taller, and stronger and faster as well, we're good at it. But outside of that, we pretty much thought we're all fucking idiots. So I'm really particular about it, I don't, I don't really give a damn about sports. Because, like I said, it is good for it's good for children. It's good for teamwork. And, you know, learning to work together, things like that, for social conditions, absolutely. But for me to actually care about, like, the idea of someone winning a meet, and it being this life changing thing, it just doesn't matter to me, if the rules state that there are a lot to play, everyone should play. If you haven't argued that you try to change the rule, but you're not going to change it. Because you know why you got to cow, it's okay, you shouldn't really care about this, because it doesn't affect you, it affects that person. Like, I think Leah just wanted to swim, they were swimming before then it was swimming as a male that is swim as a female. And I think they just want to kind of go about their life and so on so forth. I believe that I think they're going to graduate and they want to go to law school, and so on and so forth. But everything from this point forward is really just going to be about this about you winning this race you doing this, you winning this fight like maybe you're you're trying to take my entire life in Sweden says one little spot, and I got a whole last left lift. And everybody wants to comment and say something about them. Like it's not any of your business, I made this choice for myself, not to win a race. If they did it, just to win a race is the dumbest fucking thing in the history of dumb fucking things. And we're really good at dumb fucking things. And I don't think that's it, they made this choice. People are mad about it. And guess what? It's going to go forward. We're going to forget all about another incident have come up. We'll get in a tizzy about that. And nothing's going to change because it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. It really isn't. So therefore, I don't care if the rule says you play let him play, play all the time, man, I'm all for fairness. I don't care what you do with who or whatever. I don't care about sexuality. If you're LGBTQI plus, look, that's fine. That's awesome. You do whatever works for you. And if the rules say you're allowed to play, you go ahead and play, I'm going to argue with you. You have fun. I might not watch this. Don't give a shit about it. But more power to you.

Jeff:

I want to read a comment from one of our patrons and I'm almost hesitant to mention their names. What do you think don't? Yeah, don't. Alright, so I mean, this person gave me the okay to mention them. But, you know, I'll refrain. I'm just gonna read the comments. This person said, I 100% do not agree with men being in women's sports, you can claim to be a man inside your mind. But your body will always say otherwise. Let biological women have their own shit. This is one thing that LGBTQ plus community could not convince me of. They go on to say, I just never understood why most LGBTQ plus are against that third category. They always say that's going to make them feel segregated. men nor women ever have said that they felt segregated using separate bathrooms or playing separate sports. And I posed that question before, like, do we make a third category? You have the men's competitions, the women competitions and then the transgender competition is that you know, do we not have enough athletes to do that? Or is that just you know, I mean, not even

Anthony:

now, I mean, a lot of credit, and that's just a form of segregation man. How would you feel if they just made an all Latin baseball league? No way guys know this all is all Latin everything you you've got to have some lineage directly back

Jeff:

to me. I mean, they did have the old Negro Leagues back in the day,

Anthony:

right. But we had no choice because they wouldn't allow us to play, right? So we did it ourselves. That's the difference. It's not like we didn't want to play in the Major Leagues, they didn't want to allow us to play in the Major Leagues. Therefore, we had to inform the Negro Leagues. But the whole thing is that if there was an all Hispanic Lee, and all Latin American, like League, like, again, you could not be white, you could not be black, you have to have some direct lineage directly to a Latin American country. Would you think that's fair? No. Now, how's that different from anything else? When you're making, you're trying to pick and choose who can and cannot? If you're eligible, you're eligible? If you're not, you're not, like I said, none of this. None of this matters. If Leah loses, it doesn't become a common if Leah loses. It's not a conversation, we don't care. But because Leon one, right, we have to kind of deal with it to have this conversation, which is not a bad one to have. Because we should have these open discussions, I think the problem that we have in society is that we don't want to have uncomfortable talks. And these are necessary to kind of make us go forward, to really look at ourselves and the biases that we put forth. And we we don't sometimes logically think that we do, but we do. Because we have to state our opinion, we have to state our thoughts. But we have to be able to hear from a different perspective. Like, I hear you and I understand you and I respect you. But here's my point, I want you to hear me understand me and respect me. I have no issue with Leah Thomas at all. I have no issue that Leah Thomas wins race. My issue is that everyone else is making a very big deal out of something so minute, in the greater scheme of things when there's a war going on. He's high gas gas prices in the summer coming up. And they still don't quite have this COVID thing figured out that the biggest story in the world is about a transgender woman who want a right well, this is the distraction. Yes, like it's just just something that passes the time, like the world still fucked up around this one thing, no matter what it might be, won't change that outcome. There's other things for us to worry about. If Leah Thomas decided to make a very, very, very difficult decision to transition from male to female, and now decided to live the rest of their lives like that more power to them, you have my encouragement, you have my understanding that that is a choice I would make. But for you if that's something that you want to do and go flow with it, you go right on ahead. But for me, I feel different but for this, it just doesn't matter. But it is something that distracts us but we we got to keep having these discussions period. Even if at the end we agree to disagree. We have to have them

Jeff:

let me just read a couple more comments before close it out. They want to be men or women so bad they want straight people to change all their rules to make them comfy fuck all that you sound selfish. Who would

Anthony:

back the game?

Jeff:

I don't know about me that day was Martin Luther King anti trans. I don't know

Anthony:

Marva Martin love for everybody they would like to smoke it in. I feel like that's not Malcolm would have said more so they're more not even Malcolm Keynes's way to end the true Islamic not one of different black people. One of all peoples though, are people change.

Jeff:

Final comment. And this one is by somebody by the name of Christine Mitchell. Turner Christie Mitchell Turner said the answer to this is in hate. It isn't bigotry. It isn't bashing or tearing another human down. It certainly is in lashing out in emotion. The answer to this is standing strong in fact and truth, even if it offends people. And the fact is for a society that seems to be so feminist, and break the glass ceiling. The very fear of offending people because of speaking truth is going to harm and steal opportunity from generations of little girls and current women working so hard to succeed. The fact is a biological man is a biological man, a biological woman is a biological woman, a little thing called Science and DNA. Congratulations, Emma. We didn't the UVA swimmer plays second in the 500 yard freestyle behind Leah Thomas second is the new first and quote

Anthony:

wow all right I think firstly first but I couldn't

Jeff:

I couldn't I mean I will obviously by by all the comments I've read I didn't find I couldn't find one that was in support you know, I'm saying all the comments were you know, outraged

Anthony:

Yeah, but like I was saying before Miss Oh, this shouldn't get mad about you get mad.

Jeff:

Like I mean people are dying all over.

Anthony:

Right if Leah Thomas wins every gold medal and gets dropped down to 198 LEAH go to town. I do not get swim yo ASOS prices Bible for like 445 like Jesus Christ, Leah, save us.

Jeff:

But yeah, I just hope. I hope we were able to spark conversation, respectful conversation on this topic. I mean, I feel like we should have these conversations. Like I said before, people were hesitant to come on the show. Nobody wanted to come and touch on the topic. For whatever reason Bro, like, honestly, and we need to be having these conversations.

Anthony:

And like, I might sound angry sometimes you might think that I'm racist, but I'm really for everybody. Like I honestly don't care. I just want to be honest about yourself and about your opinions and like say if you're a bigot, you're a bigot, you say, but if you're a good person, and you really want to have your voice heard, you want to say something. It's okay we, I ain't gonna bash you either way. But if you aren't some bullshit, I'm going to call you on your bullshit. But if you trending the right path, and you're trying to bring positivity, love and support to this world, I'm gonna support that my whole thing that it's a race, making too much out of it. I understand it might be one thing you think, and it's another. It's just someone who used to be a man who is now biologically a female who went through all the dots and processes and testing drugs and hormone treatments and they're supposed to do so and now they're here, and they want to race cool. simplify things. Don't complicate it.

Jeff:

And I'm ended off with a quote from my favorite poet Maya Angelou, you may not control all the events that happened to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. Yo, check out the website, the culture dot one, check out the blog. Check out the show notes mango order your hydronic hydration packets. This has been episode 88 of La Cultura, peace.

Richard Jefferson's comments
Should transgendered athletes be allowed to compete in women sports?
Members of the LGBTQ+ refused to come on and discuss this
Reka Gyorgy statement
Caster Semenya
Rachel Levine
Transgendered wrestler Nyla Rose
Layla Ali
What is the solution?