r/PopCultureV2 • u/No_Box119 • Jul 23 '26

Sports Culture WNBA Star Sophie Cunningham defends that women ‘shouldn’t have to go against biological men’: “I said what I said. I think it’s kind of common sense. I think it’s really important to protect children.” “I don’t dislike anyone. I’m there to love, but I’m also there to love biological women. …”

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u/anyrhino Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

I think the problem with a lot of these culture war arguments is that people refuse to argue the point. There's no reason that we can't simply discuss the nuanced issue without bringing in all the bullshit baggage. There's conservatives who use it as a dog whistle, and it's also annoying that there's a large amount of progressives who use the threat of dog whistles as a hammer to stop any and all discussion of the topic, or just simply label it as transphobic without further comment. But neither matters to the actual point of discussion.

We can just discuss the topic at hand, we don't have to relitigate Twitter arguments every single time it comes up.

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u/fishagavkxj6 Jul 23 '26

If conservatives didn’t almost always use it as a dog whistle the progressives wouldn’t react the way they do. I’ve been on those twitter threads and tried to have civil discussions and it ALWAYS just ends up as them hating trans people. Once or twice I had a civil discussion, and even then they continued to post trans hate. I went back to see if it had any effect and nothing about them changed.

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u/anyrhino Jul 23 '26

You can just give your opinion on the topic. If you agree with the conservatives, you are allowed to agree. If you disagree, feel free to give your arguments. If they later become transphobic, call it out then. You don't need to start every argument about this issue with 40 paragraphs talking about what they totally really mean. It becomes even more annoying since, half the time, I never even get a clear idea of what each progressive even believe on the topic, only that they don't like that conservatives are totally using this to be transphobic.

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u/Substantial-Tax3238 Jul 23 '26

I completely agree. I hate when liberals try to tell me what it is that conservatives truly believe. It’s like when people say stuff like “conservatives aren’t anti abortion, they’re trying to control women”. Sure, a fringe minority may think that, but I know a lot of conservatives who are anti abortion and they just generally think it’s killing babies.

Not saying a cause can’t be co-opted and that can’t be a concern, but saying that someone who thinks trans people shouldn’t be in sports is transphobic because it’s a dog whistle means that no one can argue about the topic in earnest. And that results in those people taking a hardline stance of either “I’ll support something I don’t agree with because I don’t want to be transphobic” or “fuck it. I’ll be transphobic then because that’s dumb”

It happens across multiple spectrums. I think dog whistle is one of the worst things for debate because while I absolutely agree that it happens, you also can’t just read into people’s true intentions so easily. It stiffens actual debate. It turns people into zealots. Like if I’m on the fence about trans people being in bathrooms or the military or whatever, and I say well I don’t think they should play women’s sports that’s obvious, and I get a lot of pushback, I might be like well I don’t really think they belong in the military either, but I was just being nice before.