I’m here to provide a very unsatisfying answer: It depends.
There are a number of reasons bills like these are wrongheaded. One is that it tries to implement the same kind of one-size-fits-all solution that opponents of trans inclusion claim to oppose.
But let’s get nuanced for a minute...
NEW: Hawaii Rep. @TulsiGabbard introduces bill called \u2018Protect Women\u2019s Sports Act\u2019 \u2014 would clarify Title IX protections to be based on biological sex, which would impact transgender athletes participating in athletic programs for women and girls @KITV4 pic.twitter.com/VcDDgO1mFL
— Tom George (@TheTomGeorge) December 10, 2020
I’m here to provide a very unsatisfying answer: It depends.
How old are people competing in it?
What sort of hormone treatment has the person in question had and for how long?
Those are all factors that play into the fairness question.
Take the case of Mack Beggs.
A few years back, Beggs was a high school student in Texas. He was a wrestler, and wanted to do it at the college level.
He wanted to wrestle. Specifically, he wanted a spot on his school’s boys team.
He wasn’t allowed.
Now, here’s where you might go “wait, wait, isn’t it unfair for someone taking testosterone to wrestle girls?” and the answer is yeah, it is.
1. Don’t wrestle at all
2. Wrestle against girls, keep taking testosterone, have an advantage
3. Wrestle against girls, stop taking testosterone even though it’s something he, his family, his doctor see as necessary
But he couldn’t. Because of a blanket rule meant to ensure “fairness.”
He dominated. Obviously. He won the state championship twice in a division he never wanted to compete in in the first place.
And yes, it was. But it wasn’t his fault. It was an anti-trans rule meant to ensure “fairness” that caused the unfairness.
Here’s a story about him from this year. He’s in college now:
https://t.co/sAdkUN6SgC
Do trans women and girls have an advantage in sports over other women and girls?
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) December 11, 2020
I\u2019m here to provide a very unsatisfying answer: It depends.
It’s a topic that often gets looked at with zero nuance. Bills like Gabbard’s in the House or Loeffler’s in the Senate look to codify zero nuance.
Look, here’s a 1976 letter to the editor sent to NYT: “women’s sports will be taken over by a giant race of surgically created women.”
44 years ago!
But, as I’ve said before: this isn’t actually about sports.
Something I wrote for Vice in 2014: https://t.co/VsFjdDRtwn
More from Parker Molloy
why is everything so weird
This is almost fitting because I used to make fake "In Memoriam" videos for whenever a Trump official left the administration back in 2017 set to this song until they all got pulled because of copyright complaints. haha
Beat it
Now playing: Tiny Dancer
This is actually just the Trump campaign playlist he's used at rallies since his 2016 campaign, if you can believe it
This is almost fitting because I used to make fake "In Memoriam" videos for whenever a Trump official left the administration back in 2017 set to this song until they all got pulled because of copyright complaints. haha
Beat it
Now playing: Tiny Dancer
This is actually just the Trump campaign playlist he's used at rallies since his 2016 campaign, if you can believe it
Then they played the theme from "Titanic." Now it's "Funeral for a Friend" by Elton John. Whoever is in charge of the music is being either quite dumb or very subversive. https://t.co/bmF3osSyph
— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) January 6, 2021
2017 https://t.co/kiqQoWR57e
https://t.co/W18nqFlLru
The GOP got rid of the SCOTUS filibuster so they could jam through three fringy right-wing Alito clones, including one right before the election, but sure thing, bud.
“Uh, actually, they got rid of the SCOTUS filibuster because Harry Reid did it first for something totally different! I am very smart!”
No. Knock it off.
Here’s the thing about the “But Harry Reid...” excuse:
1. McConnell was holding up Obama nominees, some *for literal years* without a vote.
2. Had he *not* done that, Trump would have inherited *even more* vacant seats.
Sen. @JohnCornyn on budget reconciliation: "Chipping away at the rights of the minority may help you now. But you're sure to regret that someday." pic.twitter.com/12wwUkq43r
— The Hill (@thehill) February 1, 2021
https://t.co/W18nqFlLru
The GOP got rid of the SCOTUS filibuster so they could jam through three fringy right-wing Alito clones, including one right before the election, but sure thing, bud.
“Uh, actually, they got rid of the SCOTUS filibuster because Harry Reid did it first for something totally different! I am very smart!”
No. Knock it off.
Here’s the thing about the “But Harry Reid...” excuse:
1. McConnell was holding up Obama nominees, some *for literal years* without a vote.
2. Had he *not* done that, Trump would have inherited *even more* vacant seats.
This is what pisses me off about the constant bad faith victimhood crap people on the right do:
1. They wildly misrepresent something innocuous (no, Pelosi did not “ban” anything).
2. They come up with a “gotcha” example of hypocrisy... that relies on their misrepresentation.
This same exact nonsense gets trotted out constantly. “Oh, so now we’re not allowed to call ourselves husbands or mothers or uncles or aunts or men or women?! Outrage!” But no one at all is doing that, nor have they ever been doing that.
Yet the right loses its shit over this every few months. A lot of the time it’ll be something like... a lawmaker will introduce a bill that would tweak applications for marriage licenses to say “spouse 1” and “spouse 2” instead of just “husband/wife” because the status quo ...
... will have been creating actual legal issues for gay couples who then have to put something false on legal documents designating one of them as “wife.”
It’ll be something like that, just meant to fix an issue that has no material impact on 99% of people.
And the right, like clockwork, will lose their minds over it as though anyone is trying to “ban” the concept of someone being a husband or a wife or a man or a woman or whatever.
From a few years back, here’s Bill O’Reilly doing that
1. They wildly misrepresent something innocuous (no, Pelosi did not “ban” anything).
2. They come up with a “gotcha” example of hypocrisy... that relies on their misrepresentation.
Shot/Chaser pic.twitter.com/NwAZg7TTrL
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 2, 2021
This same exact nonsense gets trotted out constantly. “Oh, so now we’re not allowed to call ourselves husbands or mothers or uncles or aunts or men or women?! Outrage!” But no one at all is doing that, nor have they ever been doing that.
Yet the right loses its shit over this every few months. A lot of the time it’ll be something like... a lawmaker will introduce a bill that would tweak applications for marriage licenses to say “spouse 1” and “spouse 2” instead of just “husband/wife” because the status quo ...
... will have been creating actual legal issues for gay couples who then have to put something false on legal documents designating one of them as “wife.”
It’ll be something like that, just meant to fix an issue that has no material impact on 99% of people.
And the right, like clockwork, will lose their minds over it as though anyone is trying to “ban” the concept of someone being a husband or a wife or a man or a woman or whatever.
From a few years back, here’s Bill O’Reilly doing that
This is a good piece by @AaronBlake. I've been scratching my head over claims that there was something in this trove of emails that implicated Fauci in something bad because pretty much everything matched up with what was being said publicly at whatever time the emails were from.
One thing that's occurred to me over the past few years is that there's a sense that the mere *existence* of emails is seen as evidence of wrongdoing, which is obviously nonsense.
It played out that way when it came to the DNC and Podesta emails in 2016, the Hunter Biden e-mails in 2020, these e-mails in 2021. It wasn't that there was much that was damning in, say, the DNC emails that helped sink Clinton's candidacy, but just their existence ...
... gave off a sense of corruption/scandal/etc., that weighed more heavily on people's perception of them as the result of them taking the form of a leak/data dump.
And it's kind of similar with the Fauci e-mails (which weren't leaked, but were FOIAed).
Anyway, again, @AaronBlake's post is a good and methodical breakdown of some of the bizarre claims being thrown about. If there's anything we didn't already know contained in those e-mails, I haven't seen it.
Analysis: The alleged Fauci \u201csmoking gun\u201d emails https://t.co/DH0EOElMii
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 3, 2021
One thing that's occurred to me over the past few years is that there's a sense that the mere *existence* of emails is seen as evidence of wrongdoing, which is obviously nonsense.
It played out that way when it came to the DNC and Podesta emails in 2016, the Hunter Biden e-mails in 2020, these e-mails in 2021. It wasn't that there was much that was damning in, say, the DNC emails that helped sink Clinton's candidacy, but just their existence ...
... gave off a sense of corruption/scandal/etc., that weighed more heavily on people's perception of them as the result of them taking the form of a leak/data dump.
And it's kind of similar with the Fauci e-mails (which weren't leaked, but were FOIAed).
Anyway, again, @AaronBlake's post is a good and methodical breakdown of some of the bizarre claims being thrown about. If there's anything we didn't already know contained in those e-mails, I haven't seen it.
More from Government
Parents in cities, please pay attention to the reopening details from the Whitehouse.
Biden says "small classes". What we need to understand is how they plant to accomplish this.
Through "childcare programs in schools". We see this all over states w/ closed schools.
We need to grasp that the AFT, NEA, & local unions are systematically working to decouple education from childcare.
Their vision is your child sitting on a device all day, watched by a childcare worker, being "taught" from a Teacher working from
This isn't a paranoid conspiracy theory - it is already happening in the majority of districts across the US where schools are closed.
"Learning Hubs" open, supervised by childcare workers, sometimes in the same "unsafe" school
There is NO OTHER WAY to get "small classes" without Hybrid + wraparound childcare. Your child will spend 2-3 days per WEEK supervised by low wage workers and sitting on a laptop.
Here's
Fairfax,
Biden says "small classes". What we need to understand is how they plant to accomplish this.
Through "childcare programs in schools". We see this all over states w/ closed schools.
Today, our first working day, @JoeBiden signed an Executive Order on safely reopening childcare programs in schools - @DrBiden pic.twitter.com/J4vZk5ZAaS
— AFT (@AFTunion) January 21, 2021
We need to grasp that the AFT, NEA, & local unions are systematically working to decouple education from childcare.
Their vision is your child sitting on a device all day, watched by a childcare worker, being "taught" from a Teacher working from
This isn't a paranoid conspiracy theory - it is already happening in the majority of districts across the US where schools are closed.
"Learning Hubs" open, supervised by childcare workers, sometimes in the same "unsafe" school
There is NO OTHER WAY to get "small classes" without Hybrid + wraparound childcare. Your child will spend 2-3 days per WEEK supervised by low wage workers and sitting on a laptop.
Here's
Fairfax,
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