Most of us probably didn’t realize that the controversy over transgender athletes was a matter deserving Congressional action.
Should trans women be allowed to compete in women’s sports? Should trans men be allowed to compete in men’s sports? I assumed that the governing bodies of the sports would settle the matter.
But Republicans believe it is necessary to pass a federal law. They know the Senate won’t pass whatever law they write, so this is a symbolic gesture to their base, some of whom are terrified of trans people.
SPORTS BILL ADVANCES FOR FIRST TIME —Congressional Republicans are the closest they’ve ever been to passing legislation that would prohibit transgender women and girls from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity.
— The bill — H.R. 734 (118), the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023 — was introduced by Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) several times, but was taken up by the House Education and Workforce Committee for the first time last week in a 16-hour markup. It would amend Title IX, the federal education law that bars sex-based discrimination, to define sex as based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.
— The measure was recommended by the committee in a vote on party lines and is now primed for a vote on the House floor. While H.R. 5 (118), the Parents Bill of Rights Act, cleared the committee the same day and is slated for a vote in two weeks, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s office said they haven’t made any announcements on when they will take up the sports bill for a vote. House Republicans are expected to pass the bill with their slim majority, but it’s not likely that the Democrat-controlled Senate will allow the bill to move.
— The legislation will be a way for the GOP to force Democrats to go on record with their support for transgender students to play sports, a key part of the GOP’s 2022 midterm policy agenda. It is also a direct rebuke of the Biden administration’s proposed Title IX rule, which seeks to codify protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The Education Department is expected to unveil its final rule in May, though it said it would make a separate rule for sports.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yes. We need to remember that the Republicans can’t win majorities by promising their real program–tax cuts for the rich, tough luck for the poor, nothing much in the middle. So they use various scare tactics mostly to win.
According to PEW, “About 5% of young adults in the U.S. say their gender is different from their sex assigned at birth”
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/07/about-5-of-young-adults-in-the-u-s-say-their-gender-is-different-from-their-sex-assigned-at-birth/
In 2021, approximately 21.56 million young people between the ages of 15 to 19 years old lived in the United States.
So, out of more than 330 million people living in the United States, about one million may identify themselves as different from their sex assignment at birth. That is one third of one percent of the total.
Why are MAGA RINOs so afraid of young adults who are in no way a threat to their lifestyles?
I’m going to go out on a breakable twig and say, that young adult trans would prefer to avoid MAGA RINOs. Still, there are MAGA RINOs who would go out of their way to hunt down an alleged trans and harrass or murder them for daring to be an individual.
Republicans spent a whole lot of energy thinking of way to distract or if that fails banning reading and discussion about systemic racism and inequity. They do so because they want to preserve it. Ginning up fear and hatred is their go-to tool.
All these loathsome actions—demonizing trans youth, gag orders telling teachers what they are not allowed to teach, fear of CRT, censorship of books—is a big smokescreen.
None of these actions affect a genuine problem.
The smokescreen diverts the public from the real GOP agenda, or lack of one. They will do nothing about climate change, nothing to reduce the wealth gap, nothing to improve healthcare for all, nothing to offend Big Business, nothing to reduce prescription drug costs, nothing to improve education, nothing to help students drowning in college debt, nothing to improve the lives of most Americans.
Instead they will keep manufacturing crises that are nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
A critical piece of legislation that should be passed right after they legislate riding child molesters from the Clergy and Congress. . Your Grand Children are safer at a drag show than in church.
Saw this on Instagram: “I’ll worry about drag queens if I ever see one with an assault weapon.”
Funny
GOP = Government Of Privates
And the Government of the Privates, by the Privates, for the Privates shall not keep their noses out of your Privates …
lol
More evidence that the GQP has no policies or any idea at all on how to handle the current REAL crises this country faces. Unfortunately, their gullible base will go with this distraction.
Another branch on the Willie Horton tree.
From the twitter feed of Congressman Greg Steube, 3-13,
“I’m thrilled to have the US Conference of Catholic Bishops support the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act. Together, we will….”
Distract. Focus on the “other.” Repeat. GQP political strategy in a nutshell.
May I make a confession? I have felt a bit uncomfortable the few times I’ve been with trans persons. But that’s my problem, not theirs. I try to engage and relate and it always works out. We always part thinking we might be friends if we spend more time together, or at the very least, good neighbors. Now I still notice, but if something may offend me at first, I blame myself, not them. And then I do my best to correct my thoughts, to be accepting even if I can’t quite “get it.”
Greg,
I only met a trans person once: Caitlyn Jenner, previously Bruce Jenner. I was not sure what to say but had a good conversation until I realized she was a staunch Republican. That bothered me more than her gender. Esp now that GOP has declared war on people like her.
What churns me to no end is the cynical, often deadly, political ploy to connect differing orientations and life choices to child abuse or worse. I can honestly say, having grown up in a city known for its gay population and meeting my first transexual when I was 13 (she cut my hair, was murdered six years later for who she was), nothing could be further from the truth. People who abuse children are pathologically insecure. People who are open and secure about their genuine identity are the most self-confident people I’ve ever met. We don’t have to worry about or fear them in the least.
Just saying it is possible you both have met other trans people but didn’t even know it. Probably more likely if you come across lots of young people ages 16 – 25.
No doubt. Don’t know if you’re aware of this. Wonderful.
Thanks, GregB!
Thanks for sharing the NoSo, Greg. Wonderful!!!
Here’s your morning dose of Canadian lesbian power rock:
Haaaa! Thanks, Greg!!
The lily-white GQP despises America and American citizens. The rage/grievance Russia RepubliQan party is the dystopia party, devoid of policy, empathy, optimism and maturity. They prefer poisoning elf Putin to American presidents and support fascist dictatorship globally. They deny science as they aver white supremacy. They ban books and the teaching of accurate history while flooding our streets with assault weapons. There can be no rapprochement with traitors who hate freedom and democracy. All these bigoted freak insurrecrionists should be shipped off to Russia to die for oligarchy on the front lines.
perfectly stated, Callisto
I’m ashamed to have once lived in Boise.
………………………………………
Transgender bathroom bill advances…Idaho news
A contentious school bathroom bill is headed to the House floor, after a 14-2 vote in the House Education Committee.
Senate Bill 1100 would require school patrons to use the bathroom associated with the gender they were assigned at birth. The same rule would go for locker and dressing room use, and overnight accommodations for student trips. The bill makes exemptions for athletic coaches, janitorial needs, medical emergencies, natural disasters and safety emergencies.
Students who are “unwilling or unable” to comply with the legislation would be able to obtain an accommodation from their school.
If passed, the bill would be the first legislative response to the outcry over a proposed policy at a Caldwell School Board meeting in January. Caldwell’s policy would have allowed students to use the bathroom aligned with their gender identity, rather than biological sex. It has since been sidetracked.
SB 1100 received support Wednesday morning from several Idaho parents, including Sen. Chris Trakel of Caldwell.
The bill is a matter of student safety, according to Trakel. It isn’t transgender students who present a threat, he said, but potential abusers who might take advantage of gender identity-based bathroom policies.
One mother said her student developed chronic dehydration after not drinking water to avoid using the school bathroom. She placed the blame on transgender students who use the restrooms associated with their identity in her district.
In opposition, Amy Dundon of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Idaho chapter said SB 1100 is based on “hypothetical” problems. She argued the bill discriminates against transgender students.
“Instances of trans students harming other students — we have not yet seen that, we won’t see that,” Dundon told the committee.
The bill’s civil action clause took some heat from committee members who suggested it could encourage erroneous lawsuits against school districts. But most members, including some Democrats, agreed that districts need legislative guidance on hot-button issues like transgender bathroom use.
The committee voted 16-2 to send the bill to the House floor.
Diane, thought you’d like this.
Students at Wellesley College supported a nonbinding referendum to welcome transgender and nonbinary applicants. [NPR]
Carol,
I heard about the Wellesley controversy. The College had already agreed to admit trans women a few years back. The only change is that the students insisted that trans men also be accepted. I doubt that much will change since trans students are a tiny number.
Why would trans men be accepted?
Attorney General Todd Rokita [R-IN] pursues info about alleged sterilization of Hoosier children at ‘youth gender clinics’
Attorney General Todd Rokita is seeking answers from several medical facilities in Indiana about possible sterilization procedures performed on vulnerable children in order to “transition” them to a gender other than their biological sex.
Doctors, clinics, and hospitals are increasingly prescribing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and even surgeries to children without disclosing the known risks.
In a letter, Attorney General Rokita asked medical-facility administrators to provide answers to a series of questions.
Although some children may express a desire to adopt a different gender, they are not mature enough to address such an impulse by making such life-changing decisions that will forever alter their bodies and their future.
Attorney General Rokita added, to permit minors to undergo gender transition surgeries could legitimately be considered child abuse.
Attorney General Rokita’s letter to medical facilities is attached.
Letter to Gender Clinics 3.7.23.pdf
This is like CRT in schools. It’s the Repugnicans creating a nonexistent enemy. Doctors do not perform gender reassignment surgeries on kids, and professional guidelines prevent these from being done on people under the age of 18.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/aug/10/ron-desantis/transition-related-surgery-limited-teens-not-young/
If by “gender reassignment” you mean removing or otherwise mutilating genitals, my understanding is that happens very rarely to minors, but it is not accurate to say that it doesn’t happen at all. Jazz Jennings, perhaps the most famous example, had “bottom surgery” at 17. (See https://people.com/tv/jazz-jennings-doing-great-after-gender-confirmation-surgery-photo/ (
And “top surgeries” — double mastectomies of healthy breasts — are performed on minors much more frequently.
These surgeries are still rare, but their numbers are increasing, and those numbers are certainly not zero.
I agree that surgeries to change people’s bodies should not occur until they are AT LEAST 18 and probably not then. They are still too young and can change a lot in a few years’ time. I would support moving this up to 22 or 24. And, as I have said here again and again and again and again, people should not make the mistake of confusing gender with biological sex.
Even I make this mistake. What we are talking about is external sexual characteristics reassignment surgery.
Not gender reassignment surgery. Gender is not a matter of body configuration. It’s a batter of learned behavior.
The terminology doesn’t matter much to me for these purposes — I was just using the terminology you used. We both know what we’re talking about.
My only point is that we should stop saying surgeries like this are not being performed on people under 18, because it’s not true. More accurate to say that they are rare, although they are becoming more common.
The terminology is extremely important. Young people need to understand that they can change their gender without changing their sex. Very, very, very important because, when people are young, they change A LOT over short periods of time.
FLERP! says: ” More accurate to say that they are rare, although they are becoming more common.”
More “common”? 100 a year?
So what do you call hundreds of thousands of teenagers being surgically mutilated?
“According to statistics from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) about 229,000 cosmetic procedures were performed on patients aged 13 to 19 in 2017, though research by board-certified plastic surgeons Rod J. Rohrich, M.D. and Min-Jeong Cho, M.D. of the Dallas Plastic Surgery Institute found that very few guidelines are in place to ensure teen plastic surgeries are performed appropriately.
Currently, teenagers account for about four percent of all cosmetic surgery procedures, with the most common procedures among teens being nose reshaping, male breast reduction and ear surgery. ”
In right wing Republican Arkansas, your teenage son can easily get plastic surgery:
Dr. Rhys Branman’s Cosmetic Surgery Blog
Male Breast Reduction for Teens: 5 Things You Need to Know if Your Son Has Gynecomastia
“Whether or not to pursue treatment is a highly personal decision to be made between you, your child, your pediatrician, and an experienced cosmetic surgeon. Male breast reduction is not always necessary, as most boys with gynecomastia outgrow the condition. That said, your child’s emotional and mental health are extremely important. Treating gynecomastia earlier in life can help a boy feel more confident in his body and avoid social hardship during the critical teen years, leading to a healthier self-image into adulthood.”
Is FLERP! outraged at anyone citing a “child’s emotional health” and having this be a decision that a teen and their parents make instead of the state banning a surgery that has proliferated over the last decade?
Think about why certain folks don’t object to a male teen choosing a surgery for a situation that is apparently present in 69% of males? But they object to a trans teen making that decision with their parents.
Nose jobs? Why would a teen be allowed to choose to change their nose when they might regret it later? Look how regretful the actress Jennifer Grey is (since FLERP! believes anecdotes are very important and Jennifer Grey wasn’t even a teenager!) How many of the 229,000 teens being allowed to have cosmetic surgery will have regrets? Why the need for FLERP! (and the far right) to be overly concerned about a tiny fraction of that number of teens — a MINISCULE percentage, with almost none of them expressing regret?
Just saying, this isn’t a faux concern for the well-being of teens. It is an attempt to psychologically harm the miniscule number of teens who get these surgeries WITH THEIR PARENTS’ CONSENT, because of a strong dislike of trans people. Those kids emotional well-being is dismissed, despite there being a whole lot more suicides of those kids than in the 69% of male teens whose parents aren’t banned from allowing them to get an unnecessary surgical procedure that society encourages and allows because it cares about the emotional well-being of teens who aren’t trans.
Just because they’re not being rounded up and transported to death camps doesn’t mean these actions today have no ideological connection to them. There is a consistent thread between them; it is more sophisticated now. Don’t be fooled by the faux outrage.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anti-trans-bill-kentucky_n_6414ba04e4b0fef15243fe44
What a freaking cultural backwater
The bill was sponsored by Republican Sen. Max Wise, a leader in the pro-life campaign, member of the St. Joseph Catholic church.