Cheater whines about sportsmanship
Bad dishonest reporting strikes again.
It starts with the headline:
Yes that whole long thing is the headline.
The issue is the usual issue: saying “transgender athlete” conveniently evades the issue of what kind of trans athlete. If the athlete is a girl who identifies as a boy then she’s harming only herself. But the athlete hardly ever is a girl, is it, because what would be the point? But it’s excellent fun for a boy to do it, because he gets to cheat and be flattered and protected for doing so.
It starts with the headline and continues with the story.
Verónica Garcia did not hear the boos when the race started last weekend. When she took the lead in the State 2A girls 400-meter run at the track and field championships in Tacoma, they grew in volume and became unmistakable as she reached the finish line to become the first transgender high school athlete to place first in state.
He took the lead, he reached the finish line. He became the first male high school athlete to place first in state racing against female athletes. It all looks so different when it’s reported accurately, but it never is. All of journalism has knuckled under to this revolting mass insult to girls and women.
Such victories are typically a time for celebration but the East Valley High School junior’s win has sparked controversy.
Such victories are not typically a time for celebration when they are achieved by blatant grotesque cheating. Of course his win has sparked controversy: it is not fair. It’s not even a genuine win.
Garcia cheered and clapped for her competitors as they received their medals. When the announcer called her to the podium, the crowd fell silent and the other high school runners at the podium did not acknowledge her as they stood with hands clasped behind their backs.
As she accepted her gold medal, a voice in the crowd could be heard yelling, “She’s not a girl!”
Garcia expected the chilly reaction from the crowd, though she was “somewhat hurt” her peers did not offer congratulations. “I guess maybe I expected sportsmanship because I was cheering the rest of them on when they were called. So I guess I expected to get that reciprocated,” she said. “But I didn’t get that.”
He didn’t get that because he was cheating. Sportsmanship would have been not racing against girls. The bad sportsmanship is all his.
While the national debate continues to rage regarding the fairness of transgender participation in girls athletic competitions, Garcia said what’s lost is that the subjects of these controversies are often teenagers just trying to have fun in a sport they love.
Liar. Just try to have fun in a sport you love racing against other boys.
Unlike some states, Washington does not require transgender student athletes to undergo hormone replacement therapy or suppression of the hormones naturally produced by their bodies. Transgender athletes in Washington also are not required to disclose their medical information to play high school sports.
So boys in Washington state can do whatever they want and girls get no say. How vewy pwogwessive.
Garcia received support from Spokane’s Odyssey Youth Movement, which provides support and resources to transgender youth in Eastern Washington. Executive Director Ian Sullivan congratulated Garcia on behalf of the Odyssey Youth Movement and said transgender, nonbinary and gender-diverse youth should have the “same rights and opportunities” as any other student.
But it’s not the same rights and opportunities. It’s different ones, new and bizarre and unfair ones.
The negative attention and controversy could have a severely negative impact on Garcia, said Dr. Kellan Bryne, an executive director of Whitman-Walker, a national organization that provides health care to the LGBTQ community. “It’s horrendous. There’s already a mental health crisis among young people in this country, trans or not, and to be attacked for wanting the same thing that every other teenager wants – which is to fit in, to belong, to participate, to be on the team, to play … That’s incredibly damaging, and it’s incredibly cruel.”
Oh do shut up. He’s not being attacked for wanting to fit in, to belong, to participate, to be on the team, to play. He can do all that with the other boys. If he’s not skilled enough to be on the team, that’s just how it goes.
In fact this whole idea that there’s a right to participate smacks right up against the core value in competitive sports, which is the competition. If everybody has a right to everything then there can’t be any competition: kids can play the game but there’s no score and no team wins. Hitting a home run is no different from hitting the ball straight into the hands of the kid on second base.
“transgender, nonbinary and gender-diverse youth should have the “same rights and opportunities” as any other student.” They do, to compete in events based on their biological sex. No one is trying to exclude transgender athletes. Everyone focuses on Lia Thomas, but another transgender swimmer won national championship, Iszac Henig, a trans identified woman competed in women’s events. No one tried to exclude her.
You have the right to want that, but not the right to have that. There are millions of teenagers out there who want to fit in and do not. They want to belong, but do not. They want to participate, but are not allowed. They want to be on the team, but don’t make the cut.
Talk to any wallflower, any nerd, any outsider, and they will likely tell you they want to fit in and belong. They will also tell you they don’t. Many, perhaps most, of them end up with mental health problems and no one is calling it a national tragedy or cruel.
It is cruel when a kid shoves filth in another kid’s face on the school bus. It is cruel when a kid shoves another kid in the hallway. It is cruel when a kid calls another kid names. It is NOT cruel when someone calls a boy a boy, or says he can’t play on girl’s teams.
Re Henig
She competed at the NCAA championships in the women’s division, after declaring herself trans and getting a double mastectomy, but before going on testosterone. The next year, she began testosterone and joined the men’s team. It’s possible she would have been rejected for the women’s competition due to doping violations if she had been on testosterone before that.
I agree that nobody tried to exclude her, even though a lot of the discussion about her seemed to believe either that “trans athletes” were to be banned or that athletes were to be required to compete according to sex. Some of the bills or regulations I have seen do try to do the latter, while others are more narrowly focused on who can compete in women’s or girls’ divisions. I don’t think I’ve seen any legitimate proposals that would prohibit people competing because they declare themselves trans.
I can guarantee if Serena Williams transitioned at 15 no one would have heard of her. And if Roger Federer transitioned at the same age, he would have won many, many more tournaments.
‘The negative attention and controversy could have a severely negative impact on Garcia, said Dr. Kellan Bryne, an executive director of Whitman-Walker, a national organization that provides health care to the LGBTQ community.’
What a dishonest, whining sentimentalist Byrne is.
If Garcia doesn’t want negative attention and controversy that may have an impact on his mental health, then he should stop courting situations that involve hurting others and naturally create negative attention & controversy, Instead of his pity-mongering, Byrne might try giving Garcia some serious, and genuinely ethical, advice.
Sackbut, the rules prohibit TIFs (and any other women) from competing as women if they take testosterone. So Henig made a choice that winning was more important than her dysphoria and she held off on T until she won a national championship. TIFs can get a Therapeutic Use Exception for T if they want to compete in Men’s events. Henig did that, and even with T, she could not get out of the bottom 5% competing against men.
The more interesting issue is what to do with the “nonbinary” category some organizations are creating and whether women who are taking testosterone, like Cal Calamia, should be allowed in the nonbinary category. It just shows how totally incoherent the idea of a “nonbinary category is.
I took a look at Whitman-Walker web site. A lot of verbiage about seeing people “for who they are”, a phrasing that is common but nowadays strikes me as misleading. They offer “gender-affirming care”, and they also offer women’s health services, with no equivocation about dealing with “transwomen”. So they apparently know what a woman is.