Media bias and males in female sports

If you are new to the “trans people” in sports issue, or if you know someone who is, you need to understand the media are manipulating you on this issue. I’m going to walk through a recent article from Reuters on this subject and show you what I mean.

Right there in the headline, it’s obvious. Here’s a screenshot for the lazy who didn’t click over:

I love (that’s sarcasm) the way the media keep harping on the “transgender” thing. This is about male people trying to play, or succeeding at playing, in female sports. It does not matter what the males call themselves. They are, I might add, still allowed to play in their own damn sports — the male ones — if this bill should pass into law. And for those women who pretend to be men, if they’re taking testosterone then that’s doping; if we haven’t banned doping in high-school athletics but one day we do, then those “trans men” will be shut out because they dope, not because they’re “trans.” The “trans” element is literally the least-relevant issue here.

This is so stupid. Here’s what’s happening.

MAN: I want to play on the women’s soccer team!
WOMEN: Of course you can’t play on the women’s soccer team. You’re a man.
MAN: Oh. I forgot to mention. I identify as a woman.
WOMEN: YASSS QUEEN. SLAY. Of COURSE you can play on the women’s team.

The ONLY difference is that the man said some words. Are you fucking kidding me?

“But what,” you’re asking, “if she [sic] is going through transition [sic] and is on hormone blockers and is taking estrogen and gets bottom surgery?”

Then he’s a man who shoots up on drugs he doesn’t need and who gets his body mutilated. A female person is not a male person who shoots up on estrogen and gets his wiener turned inside-out. I should not have to explain this to rational adults.

But I’m digressing. Let’s look at this article some more. Like I said, you need to understand what you’re seeing and how the media play you.

“…across the U.S., 25 states so far have implemented some laws limiting transgender student-athletes from participating in competition…”

Strangely enough, normal male student-athletes who do not say the magical words I identify as a girl or I identify as a woman are ALSO limited from participating in competition. They are not allowed to play in female sports either. You can’t have categories if those categories do not have consistent limits. If you let some male people into the female sports because those male people said some words, you are not enforcing consistent limits. Male is male is male. Words don’t make you female.

(I just read the next words following in that article and, side note: there is a pro-trans organization called the Movement Advancement Project. Y’all have fun with that.)

“Transgender rights have emerged as a political flashpoint in the U.S. over the past decade, with focus turning to sports participation in recent years as a few transgender college athletes have achieved success, like Lia Thomas, who won a national collegiate title in women's swimming in 2022.”

*cheated and stole a national collegiate title

Male college athletes who cheat by participating in women’s sports, you mean. And every man who takes a spot in a women’s sport is one less woman who can participate in that sport, which is a blatant violation of Title IX. Men have their sports. Go play in YOUR sports, fellas.

“The National Collegiate Athletic Association currently considers transgender competition rules on a sport by sport basis and takes into consideration the policies followed by prominent world sport governing associations.”

Meaning they refuse to take a principled stand as a leadership body. Instead, they bow to peer pressure and people’s opinions and don’t look at the science. This is how important decisions are being made now, folks. You should be terrified.

“This week's bill proposes to amend the landmark 1972 Title IX legislation that outlawed sex-based discrimination to force schools to follow strict gender definitions ‘based solely on a person's reproductive biology and genetics at birth,’ meaning students assigned male at birth who have since transitioned genders would not be eligible for athletic competition.”

And here they’re taking a page out of Judith Butler’s playbook and saying “gender” when they mean sex (female, male) and sex class (woman, man). Lying about human sex change and throwing in that tired old mythology about “assigning at birth” for good (bad) measure.

This is not a person who thinks about what they write. This is a lazy person who reads a political style guide and parrots what someone else told them to say. And they’re doing it to influence how you vote. You should be angry.

Here again, playing games with language:

“‘School athletics are very often the centerpiece of communities across the country, and denying transgender, nonbinary, and intersex youth the chance to participate only serves to deny them an opportunity to be part of that community, further isolating and stigmatizing these youth,’ said a letter to congressional members written by more than 200 national groups organized as the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.”

I wish they would make up their minds whether “nonbinary” people are trans or not, but notice they’re roping “intersex” people into this too. People born with disorders of sexual development (DSDs), erroneously called “intersex,” are held up as the biological reason that transgender is a real thing. Most of them who are aware of this practice are not happy about it. If nothing else, DSD conditions are not a “sex change.” Nor are they a “third sex,” which is a really odd argument anyway coming from the people who insist there are thousands of “genders” but, mysteriously, only two puberties. You might as well group together apples and geodes, since they’re both kinda round in shape, after all.

Anyway, here’s the official congressional page for the bill so you can keep track of it if you want. And even with this, from what Reuters says, they’d still allow male people to participate in female sports practice sessions. That’s not really what I call “protection,” and would still result in female people being pushed out of participation. I wish we had a party in this country who could actually get this shit right.

Might as well wish to lay Rory McCann, I suppose.

[edit] Here’s the House version. (Fun fact: the Senate is part of Congress. Everyone’s gotten into the habit of saying “Congress” when they mean “House” and I wish I knew why.)