US Soccer Star:Bills To Ban Transgender Kids From Sports Try To Solve A Problem That Doesnt Exist

US Soccer Star: Bills to Ban Transgender Kids from Sports Try to Solve a Problem that Doesn’t Exist

In the Washington Post Megan Rapinoe writes about the joy from being able to play sports as a child. She points out the American anti-trans bills  cause incredible harm to trans youth, who, like all kids in a global pandemic, are feeling isolated and need our compassion and support.

Megan Rapinoe plays for OL Reign in the National Women’s Soccer League and the U.S. women’s national team. She is an Olympic gold medalist and a two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup champion, as well as an ambassador for Athlete Ally, a nonprofit that advocates for equal opportunities in sports.

The photo above is from a photo shoot she and her girlfriend Sue Bird made for InStyle (photo: Beau Grealy).

She writes:

These bills are attempting to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. Transgender kids want the opportunity to play sports for the same reasons other kids do: to be a part of a team where they feel like they belong. 

Proponents of these bills argue that they are protecting women. As a woman who has played sports my whole life, I know that the threats to women’s and girls’ sports are lack of funding, resources and media coverage; sexual harassment; and unequal pay.

I know what it feels like to be singled out and treated differently. No one should be treated unfairly because of who they are — and that is especially true of kids. 

Adults can’t pretend that we care about the well-being of children while actively creating environments that cause serious harm to them. We can’t make demands for a false sense of fairness while ignoring the actual needs of women and girls…

I want the trans youth in our country to know they are not alone. Women’s organizations, including the Women’s Sports Foundation, National Women’s Law Center and Gender Justice, along with sports icons including Billie Jean King and Candace Parker, agree that transgender girls and women belong in sports and should be able to participate alongside other girls and women.

Read the whole article here.

“This year taught me that my loneliness has more to do with myself than anyone else. The loneliest I will ever be is when I do not have the strength to love myself.”

— Marianna Paige

So apparently last year the National Park Service in the US dropped an over 1200 page study of LGBTQ American History as part of their Who We Are program which includes studies on African-American history, Latino history, and Indigenous history. 

Like. This is awesome. But also it feels very surreal that maybe one of the most comprehensive examinations of LGBTQ history in America (it covers sports! art! race! historical sites! health! cities!) was just casually done by the parks service. 

New Texan law targeting trans kids is cruel beyond belief

There is no way of sugar coating any of this. The Texan Republican Party has now descended into pure cruelty in their attempts at forcing transgender children to live up to their regressive views of gender.

@ErinInTheMorn writes over at twitter

Alert! Just dropped! Texas special session includes a bill to detransition trans youth, pull them from puberty blockers, and force them through the wrong puberty. It defines getting trans care for trans youth as child abuse. It will out trans children and irreversibly harm them.

This bill treats giving trans youth the GLOBAL, MEDICALLY ACCEPTED transition care as child abuse in the same categories as - Sexual assault of a child - Physical abuse of a child - Substantially harming a child - Creating child pornography Texas is trying to kill trans kids.

There are trans people in Texas who are stealth, completely live as their gender, 15 years old… who under this bill, in front of their friends and classmates, will develop a deep voice, facial hair, etc. after living their lives as their gender. The cruelty is unimaginable.

full text of SB28 here

Just for the cruelty of it, they also have 3 other bills that were just dropped. - 2 bills focus on banning trans kids from sports - 1 bill focuses on banning birth certificate changes.

Texas Republicans literally want to take kids from affirming families and send them to families that will practice conversion therapy. It’s genocide.

Full thread here.

Please note that all serious medical organizations argue that giving trans kids proper health care and affirmative support is the right thing to do.

The American Medical Association says that “We cannot allow any level of government to interpose itself between patients and physicians”. The US Endocrine Society urges policymakers to follow science on transgender health. All the leading international organizations for transgender health care defend the use of puberty blockers.

Texan state senators have also advanced a bill that would require public school students to play on sports teams that correspond with their gender assigned at birth, rather than their gender identity.

All the good people of Texas must do their outmost to stop these laws, and the rest of us will have to support them. I am pretty sure the extremists will not stop at persecuting trans people. They are already planning attacks on gay and lesbian rights.

See also: For trans Texans and their families, another special session means another fight to exist