The Minnesota State High School League has been considering a new proposed transgender student-athlete policy. One should not be surprised that this has brought forth transphobic response from the usual conservative sources.
A group which has named itself the Child Protection League placed a full page ad in the Minneapolis Star Tribune
The ad features the picture of an unoccupied shower room with the words
A male wants to shower beside your 14-year-old daughter. Are YOU okay with that?
The "threat" of 14-year-old trans girl showering with the mythical "14 year-old daughter" has been used time and again to deny transgender people equal rights. It has absolutely no basis in any fact.
Let's be honest here, the reason the choice was made to totally negate the existence of trans boys in this opening statement is clear. In the logic of the CPL and their allies, trans boys are confused girls but pretty much harmless, trans girls are actually perverted boys waiting to strike against their cisgender female peers. And the use of male next to daughter also invokes the further image of an adult man rather than an adolescent. The idea is to create a power imbalance where none may actually exist—at least not anymore so than between cisgender girls of different physicalities and abilities.
--Kat Callahan, Jezebel
As Kat points out, a 14-year-old trans girl is also someone's daughter. And 14-year-old trans boys are not akin to unicorns.
The CPL includes in the advertisement: Transgender males are allowed to play on girls' sports teams and transgender girls on boys teams.
Please note the misgendering CPL engages in. "Transgender males" are people who were assigned female at birth but identify as boys. "Transgender females were assigned male at birth but identify as girls. So it should be no surprise that transgender girls want to participate on girls teams or that transgender boys would wish to participate on boys teams.
So trans boys wouldn't want to participate on girls teams. Nor would trans girls wish to participate on boys teams.
So this doesn't just come off as wrong and ignorant, but as stupid because what it says isn't what the organisation means. Also, you know, because of Title IX, girls can already play on boys' teams, being the group historically kept out of sports. So, uh... what?
--Callahan
Biological males might be allowed to shower, dress, and share hotel accommodations with biological girls, and vice versa.
--CPL ad
Again, this disparity between male and girl. Trans girls may indeed be allowed to shower, dress, and share hotel accommodations with cisgender girls. Because they are girls. And trans boys may indeed be allowed to shower, dress, and share hotel accommodations with cisgender boys. Because they are boys. Of course, and this is an important detail: only if the transgender student desires it. Many won't, for obvious reasons. Which leads us to our first out and out lie:
Privacy accommodations may be provided for transgender athletes; however there is no privacy accommodations made for all other students.
--Callahan
The policy draft specifically says that any athlete may request special accommodations. The policy only forbids forcing transgender student-athletes to partake of "special accommodations"
The CPL is mighty upset with this provision:
This policy applies to all public and private schools in the League. There is NO exemption for religious schools.
That's absolutely true. And the League covers all sorts of aspects of schools. It's an association schools join to be seen as credible institutions of learning. It includes academics, arts, and athletics. There aren't other exemptions because a school may be associated with religious belief, or any other reason that a school administration might find. The whole point of having a League in the first place is to standardise educational experiences across the state and to do so fairly. Oh, so you're not exempt from Title IX either simply because you believe that girls only need enough education to properly manage a home? You don't get to be exempt from League-wide policies because you think transgender children don't exist.
--Callahan
At yesterday's workshop, League executive director Dave Stead debunked the CPL ad. Then the MSHSL voted to postpone making a decision...which is, of course, making a decision against the rights of transgender student athletes.
As WCCO’s Bill Hudson reported, the board wanted the currently written policy to move forward, but also to refine it before it becomes fully implemented. Some board members favored tabling the decision, saying they felt “uncomfortable” enacting the policy as written.
The decision ws tabled until the organizations December 4 meeting.
The new guidelines would allow boys to be allowed on girls teams, and vice versa, if they can show they’ve undergone a medical treatment, like hormone therapy or surgery.
Yesterday both sides of the issue were presented.
One side consists f people who don't believe in the concept of transgender:
Our anatomy is what it is. It isn’t what we would like it to be. And what we feel on any given day is not necessarily true
--retired educator Norene Shephard
It’s my job as a parent, not the school or this board, to educate my children on matters of sexuality. And I would like to have that right not taken away from me
--parent Renee Carlson
My name is Melissa Thompson and I am here as a mother of two student athletes to offer my full support of this proposed policy. And to let transgender youth in our community know that my family believes they deserve to be respected and protected just like anybody else.
--parent Melissa Thompson
I was assigned female at birth but do not identify as female. My love for basketball last year made me believe I could handle being on the wrong team. That was wrong. Constantly being mis-gendered and called the wrong name took away my soul. I already feel like I don’t have my body, now I am soulless.”
--student Zeam Porter
Video
In a seemingly unrelated news item,
a cisgender and apparently heteroexual Anoka County part-time coach (volleyball and softball) at a Jesuit high school was arrested and charged with sexual assault of two 13-year-old girls he met on the Internet. The girls were found huddled and crying behind a couch in his basement.