Despite the Blue Wave, Blue States Voted to Restrict Girls' Sports for Girls
Plus: The Coming Democrat "Civil War"?

And the angry trans extremists are, get this, angry about it.

This is the NYT so prepare yourself for some grumbling.

In the same election that brought strong showings for Democratic candidates around the country, voters in three states chose to bar transgender athletes from competing on female sports teams.

The results, including in at least one state where Democrats are dominant, suggested that many voters do not view accommodations for trans athletes as part of a broad Democratic agenda. The results also appeared likely to inspire similar campaigns in future elections on an issue that has rarely been tested at the ballot box.

Since 2020, lawmakers in Republican-led states across the country have enacted laws limiting how transgender people can participate in public life. But this election was the first time voters were asked to consider new restrictions through statewide ballot measures, and they approved many of them. The margins were large in Arizona and Nebraska, and narrower in Washington, where Democrats dominate. In Colorado, votes were still being counted on Thursday in a ballot measure over the same issue.

Supporters of the initiatives said they hoped the sports issue would be put directly to voters in other Democrat-led states. The results could also mean that decisions around broader rights for transgender people will be put before voters, political strategists said.

"To every female athlete who wondered whether her voice mattered: tonight, Washington heard you,'' Brian Heywood, the Seattle-area hedge fund founder who financed the Washington initiative, said in a statement.

For supporters of the restrictions, the results felt like vindication.

Polls have shown that a solid majority of Americans, including roughly half of Democrats, think that transgender girls and women should not play on girls' and women's sports teams. Many believe that trans athletes hold a physical edge, and that their participation prevents others from having a fair chance to win, the polls indicate.

Over the past six years, 27 states enacted laws restricting the participation of transgender students in sports starting in kindergarten or middle school, extending in many cases to college. The Supreme Court upheld such laws last June.

But in nearly two dozen Democrat-led states, including Colorado and Washington, legislatures have taken no such action. That is why Erin Lee, executive director of Protect Kids Colorado, a parent advocacy group sponsoring the initiative, wanted to put the question on the ballot in Colorado.

By Thursday afternoon, with more than 80 percent of ballots counted, the vote in Colorado on a ban on trans athletes in girls sports was close, with about 53 percent of voters favoring the measure. A second Colorado ballot measure that would ban gender-transition-related surgeries for minors, was also close, with 52 percent of voters in favor as the vote counting continued.

"My hope is that we can be the example of a blue state where your legislature is not following the will of the people," she said. "Where we, the people, can do it ourselves, and hopefully encourage others to follow suit."

Despite the fact that this issue was put to the people and the people voted to keep girls' sports for actual girls, the incoming Democrat governor of Colorado says to hell with what the people voted for, Men In Girls' Changing Rooms is a Sacred Right.

Well, that didn't take long. Less than 24-hours after Colorado elected a new Democrat governor, he's already suggesting he wants to thumb his nose at the voters who passed several ballot initiatives progressives don't like.

...

[Incoming Democrat governor] Weiser said today that these initiatives will need a long, hard look once he takes office.

Prop 134 would bar young transgender athletes from participating on K-12 or collegiate sports teams that match their gender identities. And Prop 135 would bar people under 18 from receiving gender-affirming surgeries...

Weiser, who was elected Tuesday by a wide margin in the governor's race, said officials would need to work "to understand the will of the voters."

In other words, he tends to carefully scan the very clear statement of the people to conjure up ambiguities, and then claim those invented ambiguities render the people's judgement completely void.

"It's important that we recognize that sometimes, something is passed and it is incomplete. It is not administrable," Weiser said during a post-election news conference Wednesday at the Capitol in Denver. "... Anytime you have a ballot measure that is statutory, it is a natural and, I believe, appropriate role for the legislature to say, 'What are the adjustments that need to be added?' "

For the proposal to bar young people from playing on sports teams that don't match their biological sex, for example, Weiser said: "I don't believe it would be acceptable to Colorado to have every student athlete to have to go through full-body examinations or other invasions of privacy."

This is the standard lie pushed by Trans Extremists -- that there's no way we could possibly tell who is really a girl and who is really a boy unless we "force girls to drop their pants in front of state genital inspectors."

Except... there are paper records of children's sexes. Even if a student "really believes he's a girl," doctors still have to know if he's more likely to suffer from testicular cancer or ovarian cancer.

Or does cancer Respecc the Pronouns of Its Victims?

And, of course: The notion that transgenders' real sex cannot be determined by simply looking at them or hearing their voices is preposterous cope.

Below: Leftists complain about "girls having to show their genitals" and trans extremists whine about being "betrayed" by their leftwing allies.

Bonus: Democrats are headed for a "civil war."

America has elected a slew of local, state and federal officials more left-wing than ever before.

Jeffries's own caucus now contains at least eight members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) -- an increase from two during the previous term. Among them is a woman who advocated for 'a world without prisons or police' and demanded the US 'literally, abolish the border.'

His colleague in the Senate -- fellow Brooklynite Chuck Schumer, the next Senate Majority Leader -- will have to contend with Abdul El-Sayed in his ranks, arguably among the most far-left Senators ever elected. And he almost had a fully-fledged member of the DSA by his side: Angie Nixon narrowly lost her Florida Senate race.

It is all music to Ashik Siddique's ears.

Siddique, the co-chair of the DSA's national political committee, told the Daily Mail that Tuesday's vote was just the beginning for his party. He pointed to the triumph of his rainbow-headed comrade Ashley Herrmann, 38, who even flipped a Republican-held state senate seat near Tampa, Florida.

'These results are not a flash in the pan,' he said, noting that DSA membership has surged from 6,000 in 2016 to 130,000 today. 'Democratic Socialists of America are building an enduring organization that can lead an enduring movement.

'We're now seeing DSA candidates win re-election to second or third terms across the country. We ran more candidates in this cycle than ever before. I think there were at least 200 candidates at many levels of government, from local up to Congress. So we're really leading the conversation and helping to shift public opinion on a wide range of issues.'

Siddique said that the DSA was pushing policies leftwards -- noting that on the eve of the election, even Donald Trump was discussing ending military aid to Israel.

'Nobody thought 10 years ago that abolishing ICE was a popular sentiment when we were saying it, but now it has popular support,' he said. 'When we said 'Free Palestine,' that was not a popular sentiment among Americans 10 years ago, but now it is, and majorities of Americans across parties support a full arms embargo against the state of Israel.'

DSA candidates largely ran on affordable housing, Medicare for All, childcare for all, moratoriums on AI data centers and abolishing ICE, Siddique said.

'These are very popular things, and when you look at the range of issues our candidates ran on, it's clear that we've been driving the conversation and the direction of the political left more broadly,' he added.

But what will happen when his candidates walk into the chamber in January and come face to face with the establishment? Is there a civil war brewing?

Siddique chuckled.

I don't know if there'll be a civil war. The Democrat Party is made up of two factions. No, not socialists and moderates. It's made up of Go-Slow Communists and Go-Fast Communists.

But they're all communists. They all know where they want to go. They just have different opinions on how hard they can charge to get there.

With the DSA temporarily holding the whip-hand, and proving that, at least for this moment, the public won't punish the Go-Fast Communists, the Go-Slow Communists will all fall in line and support the Go-Fast Communists. With reservations, but support them they will.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:30 PM

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