One of the stupidest efforts to promote transphobia is underway at Change.org. Someone who claims to be Jennifer Bradford of Fort Worth, Texas is calling for Caitlyn Jenner to be stripped of her gold medal in the Olympic decathalon in 1976. The petition, written in the form of an open letter to the IOC opines:
Ms. Jenner (as talented as she is) claims that she has always believed herself to be truly female, and therefore, was in violation of committee rules regarding women competing in men's sports and vice versa.
It is with a heavy heart that we must ask whether or not it is proper that Ms. Jenner should retain her Olympic records in light of this, as we must now either claim that Bruce Jenner and Caitlyn Jenner are two entirely different people (which we know is not true), or that Bruce Jenner was, in fact, a woman participating in a men's event.
For those of you who don’t speak bullshit, the petition is arguing that Caitlyn Jenner, in light of recent revelations regarding her gender identity, should not have been allowed to compete against men, and that her Olympic victory is therefore invalid. This is, of course, stupid.
While Jenner has stated that her gender identity has always been female, that in no way made her ineligible for competition—and no amount of (unimpressive) verbal maneuvering can even begin to prove otherwise. The trolls behind #givebackthegold are both rude and dumb, and are actually doing other, slightly cleverer trolls a disservice. #Revoketheirtrollpasses #andtheirwifi.
--Stupid People, The Daily Beast
The petition so far has over 11K supporters.
Max Plenke of Mic.com claims to have traced the effort to 4chan.
On Monday, a post about creating the petition went up on 4chan.org, the international haven for Internet trolls. In it, an anonymous user wrote
, "I come to you to propose a new hoax to fuck with feminists and trannies."
"Let's write a petition," wrote the 4chan user, "demanding that Jenner stay true to the transgender cause and vacate her wins in the Olympics."
4chan is campaigning against trans rights: This isn't the first hateful push from 4chan in even the last month. In late May, an anonymous user impersonated a feminist activist by creating a sponsored tweet condemning transgender people. 4chan users claim they're doing it "for the lulz" or in protest of political correctness.
--Plenke
And now that ESPN has chosen to award the Arthur Ashe Courage Award to Jenner, the
backlash has erupted there as well...helped along by Fox News, of course.