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Posted: Apr 16, 2017 12:01 AM

I did not intend to write about this story, but when I saw a picture of the teenager in question, I had to. He is 15-years-old, clearly a biological male. Look at his picture for yourself, mustache and all. As Joy Pullman notes on The Federalist, he has not taken drugs nor undergone surgery to mimic femininity. Yet he was allowed to compete against other girls in a recent sporting event, and to no ones surprise, he won quite handily, at that. Is this what is meant by equality?

In recent weeks, weve read about a female high-school wrestler who identifies as male and who has been taking testosterone to prepare to transition to male. Unsurprisingly, she defeated the other girls, all of whom are not taking testosterone.

We also read about a male weightlifter who now identifies as female. Unsurprisingly, he defeated the women he competed against, setting a new record along the way.

Other examples could be supplied as well, since this is becoming more and more common.

How is this fair? How can progressives and liberals and leftists and LGBT activists and their allies think this is right? And do the feminists of the world really want to engage in head-to-head athletic competition with their male peers?

If this was done in the world of professional sports, there would not be a single woman winning, let alone playing, at the elite, highest levels.

Not one female basketball player would earn a berth in the NBA. Not one female athlete would make it to the Olympics in swimming or rowing or weightlifting or skiing or running or jumping or hurdling or boxing. Not one.

Men would dominate in every event, and women would be relegated to cheerleading.

Thats why we have mens sports and womens sports, mens world records and womens world records. And that why we celebrate the accomplishments of female athletes as females rather than comparing them to males.

There is nothing sexist about this. There is nothing hateful about this. There is nothing condescending about this. This is a matter of fairness, equality, and common sense.

At least it should be. Today, common sense is in danger of extinction, and concepts like fairness and equality are turned upside down.

The 15-year-old in question goes by the name of Andraya Yearwood, and as the Hartford Courant reported, Andrayas first event with female peers was a cause for celebration: With family, friends and teammates cheering her on at her first high school track meet, Andraya won the girls 100- and 200-meter dashes, and helped her 4x100-meter relay team take second place.

What did this look like in person? One picture says it all, as Andraya leaves the other girls behind, girls who trained so hard for these events, only to be beaten by a boy. And I mean beaten decisively.

But Andrayas mother had a response to anyone would protest the event: I know they'll say it is unfair and not right, but my counter to that is: Why not? She is competing and practicing and giving her all and performing and excelling based on her skills. Let that be enough. Let her do that, and be proud of that.

What kind of logic is that? Because this 15-year-old biological male is competing and practicing and giving his all, that makes it fair and right for him to compete with his female peers? No matter what these other girls do, no matter how hard they try, no matter how much they push themselves, they will not be able to keep up with an equally devoted male peer. How is this fair and right to them?

Andrayas father is also supportive, saying that his son is competing just where he should be competing, also explaining that you are born into a particular body but you grow into being a particular person.

But athletic events are conducted in the body, regardless of how the person inside that body identifies. Yet when people ask Mr. Yearwood, Why is your daughter running with the girls? his response is, Because shes my daughter, much like the reason your daughter is running with girls.

With all respect to the Yearwood family, and with understanding that for them this was a matter of life and death for their child, what Mr. Yearwood is saying is patently false. His child is not running with the other girls the same way the other daughters are running, just like his child does not have to deal with monthly periods or female hormonal changes, since Andraya is not like the other girls.

But, you ask, what about Andraya? What if Andraya has gender dysphoria? What if identifying as female will save her life?

That is between Andraya and his family and the Lord. But Andrayas personal struggles cannot be imposed on everyone else, meaning, as a biological male, he has no business competing with other girls, or, for that matter, sharing their locker rooms and shower stalls. That is not the meaning of equality.

Even according to activist ideology, gender is a social construct but sex is biological. And when it comes to male and female athletic competition, we divide based on biological sex.

In the end, this is just one more example of why I believe LGBT activism will ultimately defeat itself.

You cannot wage a winning war against gender distinctions any more than you can redefine marriage while preserving its integrity. As expressed by Joy Pullmann, Its a pretty sure bet Americans did not expect tolerance for two consenting adults doing whatever behind closed doors to become a spearhead for forcing naked boys to shower next to naked girls and make girls second-class players on their own fields.

Exactly.

And so, I appeal to progressivists, leftists, feminists, and LGBT allies and their allies, along with all those who cherish fairness, equality, and justice. Look carefully at the trajectory of your activism, and ask yourself: Is this really the kind of world that you want?

12 Arrested as Rallies in Berkeley Turn Violent

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A Question for Leftists and Progressives: Is This What You Mean by 'Equality'? - Townhall

AlterNet

Fear Grows as Armed Trump Supporters Escalate Threats Against Progressives AlterNet Fear Grows as Armed Trump Supporters Escalate Threats Against Progressives. "There are a bunch of people on the Internet who are waiting for someone to tell them it's okay to start shooting at you." By Rick Perlstein / The Washington Spectator. April ... and more »

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Fear Grows as Armed Trump Supporters Escalate Threats Against Progressives - AlterNet

I read the letter comments offensive by Joanne M. Holcomp in response to Walter Crottys letter. She managed to blame Donald Trump for mocking Mexicans, a special needs person and even Jews when he told a Jewish journalist to sit down. Of course she says that Trump lies about everything including John F. Kennedys assassination.

Two things bothered me. The comment about the Jewish journalist. She is calling President Trump anti-Semitic and I am surprised that no mention of black racism or the LGBT community was mentioned until I read another letter by Laura H. Catanach Harm has been done. This letter filled in everything missing from the other letter, discrimination of blacks, Hispanics, LGBT and Middle Easterners. She even threw in scientists for good luck. She claims the usual white, heterosexual men that will benefit. Sorry, when I was 26 years old I was married six years, spent two years in the army and two years in the army reserve, I worked seven years full time and nine years part time. Growing up my clothes were mostly hand me downs from my older brother. As long as my shoes fit I used cardboard for the holes in the sole. I didnt need my parents insurance nor did I have any white male privilege. None of my friends that were mostly first- generation Americans had any male white privilege. President Obama on his mothers side had more white privilege than anyone I know.

Of course there was a letter to let everyone know about Obama saving the country. Patriotic right and duty written by Dr. Gerald Malkin. There is a better future for jobs under Trump than Obama. The only new jobs Obama created were the workers sewing Mr. pillows. The unemployment rate went down because millions of workers gave up looking for jobs that werent there. The debt and deficit are sky high. As for Obamacare, the only reason so many joined was because it was free. That was an insult to the seniors on Medicare that have to spend almost $100 a month plus pay for drug insurance. Why have Falmouth Hospital, Cape Cod Hospital, St. Elisabeth Hospital and Beth Israel Hospital expanded their emergency rooms? I thought that Obamacare would solve the problem of those without insurance that used the emergency room for care. Old habits are hard to change. I went down Industrial Drive in Mashpee to find a doctors office and passed so many health care buildings that I wondered why Medicare and Medicaid arent bankrupt.

A patriot doesnt wish the president to fail or whose goal is to make the president a failure. A failed president is a failed country.

What we need are the good old- fashioned liberals of old and not these phony progressives who use George Soros as their mentor.

Anthony Tocci, Plum Hollow Road, East Falmouth

Excerpt from:
Phony Progressives - Letter - CapeNews.net

BY MICHAEL HILL

Quick: Name an event youve attended recently where progressives and conservatives, and everyone in between, have come together to calmly and collaboratively discuss solutions for tackling a critically important global issue. Nothing comes to mind? Well, thats exactly what happened at The Collider in downtown Asheville March 25-26, when 80 people from Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina came together for the Mid-South Regional Conference of the Citizens Climate Lobby.

The nonprofit, nonpartisan, grassroots group advocates for national policies to address climate change. The focus is on passing federal legislation to create a revenue-neutral, carbon fee-and-dividend program in which companies would pay a fee for extracting fossil fuels based on how many tons of carbon dioxide the use of those fuels would produce. After covering the modest administrative costs, all remaining revenues would be returned to American households in the form of checks from the Treasury Department. Were proposing an initial fee of $15 per ton, increasing by $10 a ton annually. Studies predict that such a program would result in the creation of 2.1 million jobs and more than a 50 percent decrease in carbon dioxide emissions over 20 years.

If the Climate Lobby can persuade Southern members of Congress to support the proposal, theres reason to believe it could become federal law. If we succeed in the South, we succeed nationally, Don Addu, the organizations Southeast regional director, told the conference.

Asheville chapter leader Steffi Rausch and her counterparts from other chapters briefly summarized their groups activities. After that, participants were treated to inspirational talks by local agricultural expert and author Laura Lengnick, who runs the consulting firm Cultivating Resilience, and Drew Jones, co-director of the Asheville-based nonprofit Climate Interactive. Addressing the assembled volunteers, Jones, a globally recognized expert on climate change modeling, said, You all are the right people working at the right angle on the right issue.

Jones illustrated several scenarios, concluding that in order to prevent catastrophic impacts, humans must start now to first cap and then reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (To get a better sense of this, check out C-ROADS, Climate Interactives free policy simulator.) To that end, noted Jones, 64 national and subnational jurisdictions have enacted carbon fees.

He also highlighted some global trends, including a slowdown in Chinas production and consumption of coal, and the plummeting costs of wind (50 percent drop since 2009) and solar energy systems (80 percent drop since 2008). But even these positive developments arent enough and thats where the carbon pricing program comes in.

The conference included several sessions training volunteers in how to lobby effectively, build relationships and engage the community. Other sessions specifically addressed such topics as reaching out to conservatives, practicing active listening, and holding a lobbying meeting with members of Congress and their staffers. Participants heard about efforts by the Charleston, W.Va., chapter to bring the idea of a carbon fee-and-dividend program to the very heart of coal country.

Ill be honest: I struggled at first with the idea of proactively engaging with members of Congress, regardless of their ideological bent and party affiliation. Sometimes I just want to scream and shout, We have to do something about climate change now! What do you mean The science is unsettled. Are you kidding?

Now, however, Im all in with that approach, because this issue is too crucial for me to hold grudges or think that I alone have the solution. Im a pragmatist. I want to see the high elevation spruce/fir forests survive in Western North Carolina, see our native brook trout thrive. Most of all, I want my children, your children and our grandchildren to grow up in a world with a stable climate.

The Citizens Climate Lobby declares itself to be relentlessly optimistic, and thats a pretty accurate description. I find these volunteers positive spirit and enthusiasm to be contagious. I hope you will, too.

To find out more about CCL or get on the mailing list, visit citizensclimatelobby.org. To keep up with the Asheville chapters activities, visit facebook.com/ashevilleccl.

Michael Hill teaches mathematics and environmental science at the Asheville School and volunteers with the Citizens Climate Lobby. You can find his blog at thehillbillyenvironmentalist.blogspot.com.

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Conservatives and progressives unite to fight climate change ... - Mountain Xpress

TUCKER, Ga. To the 50 or so people who filled up the back room of Piccadilly Cafeteria in this Atlanta suburb on Wednesday night, Democratic congressional candidate Jon Ossoff is a godsend. The 30-year-old Ossoff is threatening to snatch away the reliably Republican congressional seat recently vacated by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. This special election in Georgias sixth district has become a fully nationalized referendum on the Trump presidency, with outside spending groups and national party committees dumping money and resources into the contest. The people who came to Piccadilly to meet and greet Ossoff felt an urgency that borders on desperation to send him to Congress.

Ossoff is the consensus Democratic candidate running against a splintered field of Republican challengers, and hes polling in the mid-40percent range heading into the April 18 election. If he clears 50 percent of the vote, hell win outright and avoid a runoff election in June. The intensity and the momentum here is driven by the grassroots at the local level, Ossoff said in an interview at the Piccadilly. A win on April 18, he said, would be a demonstration of the potential of grassroots organizing, a renewed emphasis on field [organizing] and grassroots fundraising.

You can hardly stumble three steps in the 6th CongressionalDistrict without hearing the word grassroots, and the Piccadilly meet and greet was as grassroots as it gets. The event was co-sponsored by Indivisible Marching Buddies and Indivisible Progressive Action Group for Atlanta, two of the many Indivisible-linked activist groups that have sprouted like mushrooms since President Donald Trumps election. Everyone there filled out postcards to mail to voters reminding them to get out and cast a ballot.

Margie Lee-Syzmanski, a 64-year-old retired social worker from Chamblee and founder of Indivisible Marching Buddies, attended the Womens March on Washington in January and returnedto Georgia imbued with a feeling of activist vigor. I have not been an activist since the Vietnam War, Lee-Syzmanski told me, adding that she felt Trumps election was more than I could accept without standing up and saying something.

Indivisible Progressive Action Group for Atlanta was started by Annabeth Balance, an 80-year-old retired transit worker who owns a Native American jewelry store and has a degree in physics. (She didnt pursue a career in that field because, she said, all the jobs involved killing people.) Balance started organizing on behalf of Ossoff after civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., endorsed him. When he came up and said, Heres this young guy, Jon Ossoff, that Im supporting, that was it for me, she told Salon.

This local activism for Ossoff has been complemented by endorsements from online behemoths like Daily Kos, which was quick to recognize this district north of Atlanta as a potential pickup for Democrats and threw its support behind Ossoff. The resulting flood of donations help Ossoff raise a record-setting $8.3 million. David Nir, Daily Kos political director,told Salon in an email that endorsements from Lewis and Rep. Hank Johnson, both Atlanta area Democrats, showed that Ossoff had quickly consolidated considerable local support to a degree no other candidate had, so we jumped in. And from there, it all exploded.s

To see this level of grassroots enthusiasm is interesting because the assumption in Democratic politics is that the activist energy emanates primarily from the Bernie Sanders wing of the party, which powered Democratic candidate James Thompson to a near upsetearlier this week in Kansas fourth district (formerly represented by Mike Pompeo, now Trumps CIA director). Ossoff is in no way a Berniecrat; he preaches positivity and pragmatism at the expense of ideology, and his campaign style is so highly polished that youd be scared to run on it wearing socks.

I asked Ossoff if he would support a Medicare-for-all proposal of the sort that Sanders backs. He would not. I think we should be focused on incremental progress based upon the body of law on the books rather than going back to square one and proceeding from a starting point of ideological purity, he said. I think there needs to be less ideology around health care policy on the left and the right. (Ossoff demurred on whether hed back a Medicare buy-in option for Obamacare exchanges.)

For Democrats in Georgias 6th CongressionalDistrict, this is fine. I dont think hes a radical progressive, Lee-Syzmanski said. Hes not demanding free health care for everyone and la la la. Cynthia Canida, a physicians assistant from Atlanta, told me that she backed Ossoff because of his commitment to bring a progressive idea and to implement it in a way that reaches across the aisle. Complaints about hyperpartisanship were on the lips of just about everyone I talked to.

And, of course, theres the Trump factor. The president is not a popular person in this longtime Republican stronghold he won the district by just 1.5 points last year. Backlash directed atTrumps presidency is driving a good deal of the activism on which Ossoff is capitalizing. Mark Shepherd, a retired home inspector from Atlanta, shared withme that hes supportingOssoff to protect the marriage rights he and his husband now enjoy. Im 65; its time that me and my spouse, that we can kind of sit back and enjoy, he said. But I cant. Not with Trump.

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Activism in suburban Atlanta: Grassroots progressives hope to ... - Salon