Their dreams as star runners
The ACLU is worked up over the “right” of male people who claim to be trans to compete against female people in sports, again.
Terry and Andraya are two transgender girls who are following their dreams as star runners in Connecticut. But as athletes on the track, they face harmful discrimination instead of accolades.
We’re fighting alongside Terry and Andraya for our right to live as our authentic selves.
Live as your “authentic selves” all you like; knock yourselves out. But that doesn’t translate to mean you get to live as your physically inauthentic self at the expense of people who are oppressed and marginalized on the basis of their physically authentic bodies, aka girls and women.
Take the pledge, they tell us.
Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood are two transgender girls who are following their dreams as star runners in Connecticut. But as champions on the track, they face harmful attacks rather than the accolades they deserve. While Andraya and Terry’s teammates and coaches support them, some cisgender athletes want to keep them out of girls’ sports.
Let’s not forget that Miller and Yearwood were not star runners when they competed against other boys. They are “star runners” only when they compete against girls. They’re “following their dreams” by switching to competing against a class of people who can’t beat them, because of differences in skeleton, muscles, lung capacity, and the like. What they face are not “harmful attacks” but objections to the fact that they’re cheating the girls they’re competing against.
And I’m pretty sure the ACLU is lying when it says their teammates support them. I’m pretty sure we’ve heard from some who decidedly don’t.
Transgender people have the right to participate in sports consistent with who they are, just like anyone. Denying this right is pure discrimination.
But it’s not who they are. It’s who they aren’t. They’re not girls; they’re not boys who have the “souls” of girls and therefore get to compete against them. They may be boys who think they “feel like” girls, but I doubt it – I think they’re just straight up cheating.
And yes, it’s “discrimination” in the sense that we know how to discriminate between girls and boys. It’s not “discrimination” in the sense of unjust neglect or punishment or rejection.
The marginalization of trans student-athletes is rooted in the same kind of gender discrimination and stereotyping that has held back cisgender women athletes.
No it is not. Boys don’t get to appropriate the oppression of girls so that they can win races against them and get opportunities that should have gone to the girls.
When misinformation about biology and gender is used to bar transgender girls from sports it amounts to the same form of sex discrimination that has long been prohibited under Title IX, a law that protects all students – including trans people – on the basis of sex.
Girls who are transgender are girls. Period.
Period shmeriod – adding “period” doesn’t make it true. Are they six?
Updating to add: Josh points out that that photo is not of Miller and Yearwood, it’s a stock photo of female legs. Dishonest much, ACLU?
When they start to have periods, I might believe that.
Gender is not biology, it is sociology. Saying that they are larger than girls and have different muscle mass is biology, and it is not misinformation.
Stop conflating things that are not the same.
I haven’t had a Period™ in … about … 15 years
Yeah. Everyone, take a look at those legs in the photo. Then square that with the reality of the two boys the ACLU wants you to see as girls.
Ophelia; Thanks.
You’re welcome.
My authentic self is authentically opposed to allowing transwomen to compete against non-trans women as it is authentically unfair.
One of the narratives I find so irritating is that refusing to see transwomen as women is due to ignorance.
As though we used to believe that being a woman or a man wasn’t a matter of one’s feelings or beliefs about oneself. But now we have learned or discovered that that’s not true. We have more knowledge now.
(Likewise, all our advanced knowledge about multiple, proliferating genders.)
It’s not a matter of knowledge. It’s not a matter of knowing more. It’s a matter of belief, perspective, different priorities, philosophy, culture, etc.
If “who they are” refers to their bodies, then yes indeed, they have the same right as any other male: to compete in the male league.
If “who they are” refers to their claimed ‘inner’ self, then they have the same right as anyone else: your ‘inner’ self is ignored. You can not swap from male to female leagues, for the same reason that a 20 years old competitor cannot compete in a 40+ bracket, and for the same reason an able-bodied athlete may not compete against an amputee: unearned competitive advantage.
This is one directional: the advantaged person may not swap to the league in which it has the advantage along the axis being considered, whether that axis is sex, age, or disability. This is why there is no pushback against trans men i.e. biological females entering those male leagues in which the male body has the advantage, nor against trans women i.e. biological males entering those female leagues in which the male body has no advantage.
(The above paragraph in particular is all for those who can’t understand the one-directional nature of physical advantage. Hello John Morales!)
I might consider myself to be a horse, but that would not give me the right to join the field for the Melbourne Cup, even if I was wearing a saddle.
Besides, why would I bother? I would probably lose. London to a brick.
But these ‘female’ roosters reckon they can win.
(Emphasis added.) But aren’t transgender people people whose sex doesn’t match their self-perceived gender? So if trans athletes aren’t allowed to compete against others of their gender, how is that discrimination on the basis of sex?