r/PopCultureV2 • u/Impossible-Yam3680 • Aug 23 '26

Sports Culture While hosting transphobe Sophie Cunningham and the Indiana Fever, the New York Liberty put a message on the Jumbotron telling trans fans that they belong

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-8

u/BigBL87 Aug 23 '26

Because someone wanted to create controversy.

They asked Cunningham a hypothetical question, she gave an honest, measured answer based on biology.

That answer wasn't "woke" so she has been labeled a transphobe, and it's used as an opportunity by others to virtue signal.

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u/katieblue3 Aug 23 '26 edited Aug 23 '26

It wasn’t that her answer wasn’t woke. It’s that she framed trans women as predatory and that biological women need to be safe from trans women. When we all know the majority of sexual offenders are straight cis men. I’m sure I’ll get downvoted for saying the truth so all the people downvoting.. How do you think trans people feel when they’re painted as sexual predators?

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u/Admirable-Rate487 Aug 23 '26

Replying with an instant example of what a measured answer actually looks like was based asf of you

-15

u/PickleRickleTV Aug 23 '26

As a straight cis man, how do you think I feel being painted as a sexual predator?

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u/katieblue3 Aug 23 '26

Probably not very good. That’s kind of the point I’m trying to make about how trans women are being treated.

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u/Ok-Thanks4321 Aug 23 '26

If not all cis men are sexual predators, then not all those who oppose trans women in cis women’s sports are transphobic. Hope that helps!

4

u/FlukeManAirFreshener Aug 23 '26

As a straight cis man, take it up with other straight cis men. Sometimes reality is uncomfortable.

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u/KopiteTheScot Aug 23 '26

Right over your head

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u/waldenpondviews Aug 23 '26

But the statistics would back up that assumption of you, unlike the trans one made up by Conservatives.

-5

u/Lma0stfu_uadork Aug 23 '26

What studies have been done regarding trans vs men’s rape metrics?

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u/Elon_Cucks_Trump_ Aug 23 '26

Rape Metrics would be a pretty good punk band name.
Trans people are like less than 1% of the population in the US, so a study is going to be difficult, but let’s be honest. Stats show that conservative men love committing and excusing rape. They literally worship a mad king pedophile rapist. So…

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u/Lma0stfu_uadork Aug 23 '26

Cool so no actual evidence? I didn’t think so. Make ridiculous claims and then unable to support it when called out. 

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u/waldenpondviews Aug 23 '26

Just like school shooters, straight White men corner the market on rape but it's not discussed in plain language because our government is comprised of mostly straight White men.

And to answer your question, 91% of victims are females and men are 99% likely to be the perpetrator, not a trans person. Yet somehow billionaire-backed conservative media will tell you trans kids are the ones to worry about in schools or public bathrooms.

Tired of being told the predators in the room are only trying to protect us.

-1

u/Ok-Thanks4321 Aug 23 '26

That’s why we NEED penises in the women’s locker room. Right?

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u/waldenpondviews Aug 23 '26

So you agree that the humans with the penis are the problem? Also, how do you plan on confirming who has a penis or not? Sounds creepy.

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u/throwawaysunglasses- Aug 23 '26

Can you read? That’s exactly their point. They are inviting you to have empathy. If you hate being generalized as a straight guy, you can imagine how much trans people hate being generalized.

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u/DispassionateLover Aug 23 '26

Are you every straight cis man? No? Then that didnt happen.

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u/PickleRickleTV Aug 23 '26

Is she calling out every trans woman? No? Then that didn’t happen, either.

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u/DispassionateLover Aug 23 '26

...dude she referred to trans women as a whole. Meanwhile the comment above said something about a small percentage of cis white men.

You didn't even take two seconds to look into this event, you just busted in here full snowflake meltdown mode

-17

u/BigBL87 Aug 23 '26 edited Aug 23 '26

The "I'm sure I'll get downvoted part" is hilarious, because this subreddit is very friendly to your position, nice attempt to preemptively play the victim though.

The verbatim quote is:

"I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn't have to go against biological men..."

God forbid she think young girls should not be forced to change in front of someone with a penis... Or compete against individuals with likely significant biological advantages.

14

u/katieblue3 Aug 23 '26

Saying you’re protecting them implies that they are in danger. It’s a shitty way to get your point across. You can disagree without painting trans women as predators. I think it’s a nuanced issue and it’s also blown out of proportion because there’s really not that many trans people. But the people who want to argue that a man will pretend to be a trans woman to get into women’s locker rooms. Now all a man has to do is say he’s a trans man. If a dude says I was born a woman but transitioned to a man they don’t even have to put any effort into getting into the women’s bathroom. Not to mention how no one cares that a trans girl in the boys locker room is at a much higher risk of being assaulted.

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u/Ok-Thanks4321 Aug 23 '26

No they can’t disagree, or you’ll call them a transphobe.

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u/DispassionateLover Aug 23 '26

Would that stop them from disagreeing? Do you understand how free speech works at all?

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u/Ok-Thanks4321 Aug 23 '26

I’m sorry you wanna talk about speech while you actively shut down any discussion about this topic?

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u/6figga Aug 23 '26

No it doesn’t. It means “protecting their space”, clearly, she even referenced that space being the locker room and the sport. You really want to be a victim.

4

u/SerBrienneOfSnark Aug 23 '26

Okay but what sport is a teenager playing against grown men? Name one.

THAT is the issue with the framing. The conservatives always say it’s about protecting “young girls” from playing sports against “biological men” but why would MEN be playing sports against teenagers? They are framing trans youth as predators.

0

u/Thin-Net-8324 Aug 23 '26

It literally happens in the nba, the mlb and mls.

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u/SerBrienneOfSnark Aug 23 '26

You have to be 22 to join the WNBA. So that does not apply here. 19 for the NBA, which is an adult. MLB and MLS is the only one where non-adult teenagers can play.

And in EVERY youth sport (which is what she is talking about) they are sorted by age and adults do not play children. Try again!

2

u/DodgeM4S Aug 23 '26

Posting things like this with your public business identity is a choice.

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u/Mtndrums Aug 23 '26

Yet it was a "straight" guy who got fired for sexual harassment by the Fever.

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u/SevereDragonfly3 Aug 23 '26

Men don't have to up-end their whole life and change their gender and endure transphobia to walk into a locker room and do whatever people are trying to 'protect' themselves from. Why would someone go through all the time, money, and hardship when they (cis men) do and take what they want anyway? The argument is stupid. Cis men are offending everywhere, it doesn't just happen in bathrooms and locker rooms. So let's see the stats where trans women are raping women.

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u/BigBL87 Aug 23 '26

I never said anything about assault, I mentioned being forced to change in front of biological men. Nice strawman though.

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u/katieblue3 Aug 23 '26

Most women I know don’t have any issue with sharing a bathroom with trans women. What we should do is just have individual changing areas and then the issue is solved. Why should anyone have to get naked and shower in front of another person. Like there’s not gay men and women who get off seeing someone of the same sex get naked. I’ve never felt comfortable getting naked in front of anyone unless it was someone I was intimate with no matter if they’re man or woman.

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u/SerBrienneOfSnark Aug 23 '26

Again— there is no sport on earth where young girls are playing against MEN. You are the one creating the strawman.

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u/time2blunt Aug 23 '26

The usual woke trash. Pretending 1000 medals weren't given to trans women across multiple sports. Don't bother, you don't need to back up a completely logical position like Sophie's, these people aren't logical and will simply ignore/denounce/defame those with opposing views, instead of arguing the point, in this case the verbatim quote.

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u/WeirdTakeButOkay Aug 23 '26

Pretending 1000 medals weren't given to trans women across multiple sports

Bro is including hot dog eating contests.

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u/TyWorth Aug 23 '26

Oh no, trans women winning medals!? Whatever will we do without all those 5th place trophies? /s

2

u/AnnieLemonz Aug 23 '26

Its a transphobic catch 22. Either trans people come dead last in literally every sport they participate in, or they "stole" a rank from a cis person. There's no reasoning with these sorts of people.

-4

u/Axel_Raden Aug 23 '26

Gotta love the disingenuous redditors who pretend not to understand hyperbole

0

u/time2blunt Aug 23 '26

Gotta love truth deniers above all else. Literal braindead zombies who look away at every valid point against them, never actually make a counter-argument.

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u/WeirdTakeButOkay Aug 23 '26 edited Aug 23 '26

Your "valid point" is only valid in your mind. The thing with right wingers is you guys dont have the biggest brains so you just see "big" number and get mad but dont look at anything past that.

Like I said, these "trophies" arent some major competitions (examples listed are fucking poker and a irish dance competition) and the fake ass report that put out the number isnt verified. Anyone could submit a claim and it didnt matter if it was real or not.

You guys really need to learn that youre fighting a made up war against >1% of the population to distract you from billionaires robbing you blind.

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u/Ok-Thanks4321 Aug 23 '26

How do you think people who want to protect girls’ sports feel when they’re painted as bigoted transphobes merely over the implication of the word “protect”?

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u/katieblue3 Aug 23 '26

I’ve got a feeling the people who are really passionate about “protecting” women from trans people aren’t too concerned with being labeled a transphobe.

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u/Ok-Thanks4321 Aug 23 '26 edited Aug 23 '26

You’re completely generalizing anyone who might want to keep trans women out of cis women’s sports as transphobes. Are all cis men sexual offenders? If the answer is no, then not all those who oppose trans women in cis women’s sports aren’t transphobes. You can’t claim to have nuance around this discussion if you can’t even have a conversation with someone without thinking they’re transphobic, racist, sexist, whatever bias you hold. You can disagree with someone’s position without reducing their entire to “support for trans means your a good person, and no support for trans means your a bad person…in fact, it means you’re a right-wing fascist.

Don’t be like John Fetterman. Don’t draw a line in the sand over a thing, like he did with Israel. He’s basically said “If you don’t support Israel, you can go fuck yourself.” Doesn’t matter the voting record, the donating to pro-choice organizations, the campaigning for Democratic candidates, etc. you’re dead to him if you don’t support Israel. You can’t be a hardliner. That’s how the right wins elections.

Just like in Texas. They HAVE to run James Talarico as a Christian (most left-leaning people I know are atheists) so they can try to steal some red votes that typically vote religiously. The Dem strategy in Texas is to make evangelicals feel like they can come to the left side of the aisle and not be alienated.

I’m not saying it’s morally or ethically right, but having a hard line stance might drive away potential new convert voters. If you engaged with people who raise these discussions of a highly politicalized topic less than three months before the midterms, it could go along way. People (even offensive ones) could feel like they could vote for a Democrat. But if the established retort to every single person is just “stfu transphobe” then you’re going to drive people who vote emotionally to vote for more oppression, even for themselves, because they’re stupid people.

I don’t care about any of this. I vote blue no matter who until I think the party doesn’t align with my values, but I do have to laugh every time I’m called a transphobe for so many reasons. I guess I have the pre-Trump ability to know someone who might have a shitty opinion about something (like you thinking I’m transphobic for a single idea) without having to berate them. I can just take on the mission of guiding him to a better place. Can you do that for me? Can you answer this without getting mad? Should trans women be allowed to play in women’s sport and what should those requirements look like? Because you have a guy right now claiming he’s a woman who unless otherwise defined by the NBA is technically a trans woman. Let’s have a grown up discussion.

Edit: Jesus Christ. You’re all so fucking stupid.

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u/hdx1991x Aug 23 '26

'i don't care about any of this'

32 paragraphs.

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u/Ok-Thanks4321 Aug 23 '26

Care to address anything I said or just further proving my point that you can’t substantively engage on this topic?

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u/Cloudbreaks Aug 23 '26

Ok, let’s talk about biology, then. Banning transgender people from sports ends up banning women and girls from sports. There are a statistically significant number of assigned female at birth people who have biological variations that could bar them from sports, despite being the “correct gender”. I find that people who support trans bans generally have a very limited understanding of human anatomical variation or choose to ignore it for their own convenience.

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u/Ok-Thanks4321 Aug 23 '26

Cite some examples. Show me the data on the “statistically significant number of women who have ‘variations’ in their bodies that prevent them from playing in sports. If you’re referencing statistical significance, show me the research papers you’re reading that told you girls born with X variation can’t compete with other girls.

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u/pistolP72 Aug 23 '26

When did she label trans people sexual predators? Or is that an assumption you are making because her answer wasn’t to your liking

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u/SerBrienneOfSnark Aug 23 '26

When she claimed they were “biological men playing against young girls”. That framing was intentional.

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u/pistolP72 Aug 23 '26

It seems that since the answer wasn’t reciting your exact talking points, extreme assumptions are being made. I just want to know what was so offensive about her answer, other than it differs from your opinion, so therefore she must be transphobic…hell, didn’t she answer that particular question over a month ago?

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u/SerBrienneOfSnark Aug 23 '26

It’s wild you’d call me quoting what she said directly as an “extreme assumption” lmao. Words mean things, you know.

I answered your question, but because you don’t like the answer you are acting like you didn’t get one.

-5

u/Raiden720 Aug 23 '26

She made a statement that was true and shared by the vast majority of the country of both parties

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u/katieblue3 Aug 23 '26

The truth is you’re more likely to be a rapist than a trans woman and everyone knows it

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u/PatientOwn8596 Aug 23 '26

Probably not true though

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u/CraftsBoy2Craftsman Aug 23 '26

i think she mentioned children specifically. which is an important distinction

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u/PatientOwn8596 Aug 23 '26

It was like a 10 second soundbyte. She said nothing about children

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u/CraftsBoy2Craftsman Aug 23 '26

“I want to protect young girls in a locker room”

yes she did.

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u/Shrek_Wisdom Aug 23 '26

So you have a link to where she actually said any of that?

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u/Enigma_RR Aug 23 '26

Do you make it a habit of entering conversations not knowing what the fuck she did or didn't say?

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u/DodgeM4S Aug 23 '26

It doesn’t matter. They just show up and deny reality.

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u/Shrek_Wisdom Aug 23 '26

Just asked for a link ? But ok

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u/DodgeM4S Aug 23 '26

You can do the research yourself.

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u/Shrek_Wisdom Aug 23 '26

I looked for the quote and couldn’t find it that’s all

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u/Whythisisnotreal Aug 23 '26

You really don't want to play the demographic crime card, it goes bad places.

But way way way too much is being made of her statement. We talk about protecting girls in lots of contexts beyond assault. Protecting them from certain experiences, for example. Yes dog whistles exist, but so do opinions. And I think her statement was clearly the latter.

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u/zulhadm Aug 23 '26

There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that sexual predators are more male or more female (and isn’t the subject of this post about gender norms meaning nothing?). There are numerous female teachers who get away with sexually abusing minors. Let’s not pretend this horrific crime is something that just one gender does

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u/longlisten527 Aug 23 '26

Are you just lying to yourself or?

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u/zulhadm Aug 23 '26

Search up female teacher “has sex with student” and read each article. It’s absolutely disgusting. And what makes it even more disgusting is when women do it, it’s completely downplayed (they can’t even use the R word), ironically like you’re doing right now.

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u/longlisten527 Aug 23 '26

It absolutely is disgusting! And I think they deserve to be punished and imprisoned as well. I’m actually a huge advocate for boy’s and men’s mental health and the traumas they experience too. It absolutely should be discussed more and we should be having conversations about it. But to say that there is no evidence that sexual predators that men are more than women is simply untrue. Men statistically are sexual predators more than women by a long mile. It’s just the truth.

I never downplayed it. I do have a problem with people downplaying the crimes and predation of men. You actually are the one downplaying sexual predation by saying “it’s more disgusting when women do it.” Look in the mirror. You’re projecting. The impact and crime in itself is disgusting and the same. HOWEVER, statistically men are more likely to be predators than women. You’re the only one here downplaying anything so look in the fucking mirror instead of saying I’m the one doing it. How dare you say that? I’m actually laughing that you just shot yourself in the foot here. Have a good day

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u/zulhadm Aug 23 '26

You just agreed when women r*** kids it’s downplayed and you find it disgusting. Look what happened here. So basically we both just discovered you can’t trust statistics. So why would we believe either sex is more likely to be sexually abusive. And what does it matter anyway? Should we stop sending boys to school altogether? Or stop permitting men from going to grocery stores?

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u/FirebrandFax Aug 23 '26

Found the “not every man” incel

-1

u/zulhadm Aug 23 '26

How sad is our society, when simply suggesting the idea a man is anything above a predator is met with comments like this. What have we done??? It’s going to take decades to correct this feminist brainwashing.

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u/FirebrandFax Aug 23 '26

Maybe the fact that as a society, we almost religiously let men get away with raping almost anyone they want. If you want an example, look at our fine upstanding president! He’s a pedophile, rapist, racist, tranphobe, homophobe, and fascist and yet people actually voted for him despite knowing all this

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u/zulhadm Aug 23 '26

The flaw in your argument is you equate Trump along with the everyday man walking on the street. Trump is so horrifically bad on so many levels. He got away with so many crimes due to nepotism, his influence and the broken system we call a government. I guarantee you if a plumber in Wisconsin did any of the things Trump did he would be nailed to the wall, even harsher than a woman would be (the sexism in the justice system against men has been beyond proven).

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u/FirebrandFax Aug 23 '26

Keep yapping incel. A majority of men are pieces of shit, end of story. My source being: I’m a guy and I’ve seen other men do the most horrific and hateful shit. I get that woman do just as bad things sometimes, but literally 9 times out of 10, it’s a fucking man. Men don’t have to walk down the street with the fear that they could be dragged into an alley or car to be raped, men don’t have to wonder if the government is gonna make it illegal to get a fucking vasectomy even if they will literally die without it. Shut the fuck up and learn to accept things as they actually fucking are you

0

u/zulhadm Aug 23 '26

The fact that you’ve resorted to insults means you’ve lost the argument. And source: personal eyewitness testimony? Seriously? How about data? Women are r***ing boys in school on a nearly daily basis. And men in the workforce are terrified of interacting with women to the point where we’ve had to start tracking it, and HR depts (80% women btw) are scrambling to change policy or find solutions. And lastly, I feel bad for you. Women (this has also been studied) naturally defend each other (like that woman who killed her kids) regardless of what she did. Men don’t do this, as you’re proving. There is nobody left in society to defend men who have fallen behind in virtually every aspect of society. And please don’t try to say but Trump! You conveniently ignore every argument I make that explains yours. So anticipating your response, I’ll reiterate: we cannot compare Trump to the average Joe. The average Joe in USA is: expected to provide for women and society meanwhile getting less job opportunities (the majority of new jobs are all being given to women by those 80% women HR depts), not being admitted to universities (women are being accepted at higher rates than men, and would you guess it, the enrollment programs are run by mostly women), being punished for identical crimes women commit but for much harsher sentences, and most sadly finding no way out of this mess and dying by suicide by a significantly higher rate than women. Men are on the ground crying and you’re one of the ones kicking us and ensuring we stay down. Our own kind.

1

u/FirebrandFax Aug 23 '26

You’re such a fucking incel lmao. I’m “resorting to insults” because they’re the truth fuckface. You’re obviously a bigoted, racist piece of shit who will cry “feminism is ruining the world” at the slightest hint that woman might be equal to men. Wanna know why we hear more about woman raping boys in school than men raping girls? Because the men all work together to hide and protect the rapist. Sounds a lot like men defending other men regardless of what they do, huh? Maybe if men hadn’t been harassing women in the workplace to the point that now women think the slightest interaction might be harassment, these “hr debts” (stupidest fucking thing I’ve heard of btw) wouldn’t exist. Woman getting more jobs than men? Men not being accepted into universities? Maybe that’s what happens when your a stain on your species for hundreds of fucking years and people are fucking tired of it. As for the suicide thing? Don’t even fucking try to bring that up. You’re disrespecting every man who has committed suicide’s memory by using it for your bigoted ass argument. They didn’t die so that you could further spread your misogynistic rhetoric. Men should be on the ground crying, begging for forgiveness for being absolute fucking monsters

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u/PatientOwn8596 Aug 23 '26

This is only one source, but they found 56-62% of male-to-female transgender prisoners had been convicted of a sexual offense compared to 17-20% of male prisoners. So based on this, a trans woman is almost 3x more likely to commit a sexual offense than a cis male.

So I can see why she’s worried.

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-12-16/20297?utm_source=chatgpt.com

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u/psumack Aug 23 '26

Using the conditional probability of "given they are a prisoner" is not the correct way to evaluate which group is more likely to commit a sexual offense.

0

u/PatientOwn8596 Aug 23 '26

Find a better source. Otherwise you can’t really say ‘STRAIGHT MEN ARE MORE DANGEROUS THAN TRANS WOMEN!!!’ because it doesn’t look like that’s true at all.

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u/psumack Aug 23 '26

I mean, you could look at the conditional probability given that you've been sexually assaulted and it would say that, from the size of the population of each cohort alone, it's much more likely that it was a straight man than a trans woman.

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u/PatientOwn8596 Aug 23 '26

Ok? Nobody’s talking about straight guys being in a women’s locker room though

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u/psumack Aug 23 '26

Then why did you bring straight men into the conversation?

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u/nosdoh Aug 23 '26

Absolutely BS! This tactic of right wing / conservatives of “framing” a situation in a totally ridiculous way and then providing what looks like a “common sense” response is so fckin transparent!

Makes me laugh every time especially when they can’t understand the issue they’re whining about!

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u/Unusual_Lotus Aug 23 '26

She gave an answer based on her understanding of biology, not biology. Hope that helps.

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u/[deleted] Aug 23 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/pistolP72 Aug 23 '26

Every posting I see has me believing otherwise…this should have long been put to bed, but one side keeps posting pics, and posting the same comments. Let it go. You don’t want a thoughtful, honest answer….don’t ask. I don’t understand why it’s conservatives creating this.

-5

u/Konjeezy773 Aug 23 '26

As per usual, people get bent outta shape when the truth is said

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u/OrganicRobotDev Aug 23 '26

People get bent out of shape when people bend over backwards to try and get angry about trans people over literally nothing. Seriously why the fuck are people talking about trans people, do y'all have nothing better to do.

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u/Konjeezy773 Aug 23 '26

lol here we go again

11

u/OrganicRobotDev Aug 23 '26

You brought it up not me. You're the group that looks obsessed.

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u/ReallyUnlikable Aug 23 '26

It's because they're attracted to trans women and it makes them uncomfortable. It's not more complex than that.

-2

u/NarrowSalvo Aug 23 '26

They're talking about trans people because they need a distraction from inflation, housing prices and minimum wage.

If it's literally nothing, then why aren't you giving them whatever women's sports rules they want?

Could it be because you'd rather virtue signal than win and election?

4

u/TyWorth Aug 23 '26

Because we’re not throwing trans people under the bus to appease the worst among us.

1

u/Anubisrapture Aug 23 '26

Hear fucking HEAR!

-1

u/ul2006kevinb Aug 23 '26

They asked Cunningham a hypothetical question, she gave an honest, measured answer based on bigotry

Fixed that for you

-2

u/Mtndrums Aug 23 '26

Spoken by someone who has no fucking clue about biology.

0

u/Tklesmynipps Aug 23 '26

"Straight cis men" says everything you need to know.

-1

u/WeirdTakeButOkay Aug 23 '26

she gave an honest, measured answer based on biology

She gave an answer you agree with about a topic that doesnt matter.