Careful, parents. That anti-trans witch hunt could hurt your kid, too.
Alyssa Rosenberg, Washington Post
Sports-crazed parents have never lacked for creativity in search of a leg up for their offspring. And thanks to Republican state legislatures, some of them now have a new weapon in their arsenal. Why fake an athletic résumé or sue the varsity coach when you can simply accuse a girl who bested your daughter of being secretly transgender?
According to Deseret News, two Utah families whose daughters finished second and third to another girl in an unspecified sport have done just that. Their actions, and the resulting state investigation, should give pause even to parents concerned about making sure cisgender girls have a chance to compete. For all but the tiniest minority of student athletes, the main goals of school sports are ultimately physical activity and character-building. Teaching children to vilify and hurt their opponents is a perversion of that mission.
Banning trans athletes from the teams associated with their gender identity has been a conservative culture-war fad since at least 2020, when Idaho became the first state to do so. Legislators in 17 other states followed. A number of other states have executive orders or athletic association policies to the same effect.
Some trans athletes, such as college swimmer Lia Thomas, do emerge as top competitors. But at the K-12 level, these bans tend to target what Utah’s Republican Gov. Spencer Cox in March called a “very small number of transgender kids who are looking to find a sense of connection and community.”
The cruelty of some of these bills goes far beyond exclusion — and, as the news out of Utah should make clear, beyond trans children.
Earlier this year, the Ohio House passed a measure permitting invasive sex verification for student athletes. The law is so vaguely written that it risked opening the door for anyone, including a parent or coach, to knock out a competitor by challenging his or her sex, forcing that child to submit to a genital exam or quit sports.
The Utah process of student gender verification sounds sane only by comparison. As Deseret News’s Marjorie Cortez reported, the Utah High School Activities Association reached out to the girl’s school and asked for records confirming that she had been consistently enrolled as female. The student wasn’t informed about the challenge to her gender. Neither were her parents.
The association seems to have hoped to avoid causing the families of investigated children distress. But how awful would it be for a student to find out that her school is investigating her behind her back for any reason? And how mortifying would it be to learn that the reason for the investigation is that, as association representative David Spatafore told the Utah legislature, someone thinks that a “female athlete doesn’t look feminine enough”?
Alyssa, you are simply nuts. There is no saving you, and there is no sense in listening to your “logic” because it is illogical. Why do you Libs always take the side of the perceived “victim” when that “victim” is victimizing the greater population? Also, Alyssa, why aren’t there thousands of “female” transgenders participating in male sports? You know the answer, Alyssa. It’s because they will get their tranny asses kicked. – The Liberator