Now the election is over, and insulting black voters by labeling their votes “fraudulent” (see previous post here) is passe for now, some Republicans casting about for a new hate object are fixing their sights on transgender athletes.
Newly elected reactionary Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who knows nothing about anything and wasn’t much of a football coach either, led the charge by trying to amend the Covid relief bill to strip federal funding (all federal funding, not just Covid relief funding) from schools that allow trans athletes to play in female sports. This was pure grandstanding, as the amendment never had a prayer (it needed 60 votes and got 49).
What the heck?
This, of course, is part and parcel of Republican dogma that gay and trans people are subhuman freaks who choose an immoral lifestyle. Nature, not individuals, dictates gender, and sometimes chromosomes get crossed. Proof? This happens in other species, too. For example, about 10% of sheep are queer and refuse to mate with the opposite sex (read about that here).
But Republicans believe lots of things that are made-up or untrue. They’re entitled to do so; that’s a perk of living in a free country, but believing a fantasy doesn’t make it real (think pony in straw).
I’m all for freedom, and letting people believe whatever they like, but I won’t put a flat-earther in charge of moon landings. And freedom of though doesn’t confer a right to infringe on somebody else’s rights, including the right to be treated like a human being. As the saying goes, “Your freedom to swing your fist stops where my nose begins.”
This principle is poorly understand, if at all, by Republicans — who bleat about “freedom” when justifying their own obnoxious behavior, but are total hypocrites about telling other people how to live. And, needless to say, picking on kids isn’t beneath them (although it’s beneath everyone else). I won’t delve much into the psychology of people who are intolerant of anyone even slightly different from them. Put it this way, they’re weak and insecure.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) knew exactly how to respond to Tubey’s nonsense:
No doubt we’ll hear a lot more about (and from) Sen. Tuberville as time goes on, none of it intelligent or constructive. What you can expect him to do in the U.S. Senate is cement Alabama’s reputation as a backwater populated by ignorant bigots that you wouldn’t want to live in. After all, senators reflect the thinking of the voters who elected them.
There is a fairness issue involved. It goes to the reason there are women and men sports. Biology does not treat the sexes equally. A very few women can compete with the best male athletes in a sport, A lot of men can compete against the best female athletes in most sports. There are few if any transgender scholarships, so when trans athletes compete in women’s sports and get the medals they also get the scholarships. And when a trans female competes against men, well it has not happened yet and no scholarships have gone to trans women competing as men. When it does it will be big news. There is something inherently unfair occurring here and it will undermine women’s sports and make title nine sports just another men’s league.
You’ll never convince me this has anything to do with fairness. These Republicans don’t give a hoot about what’s fair. They have other motives.