We’re in Kansas now, Toto, show us your genitals
According to the Kansas State High School Activities Association, about 106,000 students participate in the organization’s sports and activities. Guess how many of those students are transgender girls? Three. That’s right, just three.
Three transgender girls enjoying sports is apparently an emergency for Kansas Republicans. For the last few years they’ve been trying to pass a bill that would ban transgender girls and women from participating in female sports at public schools and colleges. The Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, vetoed the bill but, on Wednesday, the Republican-dominated Kansas legislature finally got enough votes to override the veto. Not only are transgender students now restricted from participating in school sports, parents can sue if they think their daughter didn’t make a team because a transgender girl took their place. (The focus of the bill is very much on transgender girls and doesn’t say much about trans boys.)
Republicans excel at passing deliberately vague bills, whose main purpose is seemingly to terrorize minorities rather than lay out clear law. This bill is no exception: it is very short and doesn’t say how they would determine whether someone is trans. This has led some people to provide their own interpretations.
“Kansas Republicans have successfully overridden the Governor veto to now authorize genital inspections of children in order for kids to play sports,” a viral tweet claimed. While that tweet got thousands of likes it should be noted that the bill doesn’t say anything explicit about genital inspections. However, it’s certainly not a gigantic leap to think something like this might be implemented. A 2021 version of the bill contained language stating that a dispute regarding a student’s sex might be resolved by a “health examination”. Further, during a House meeting in February, state representative Barbara Wasinger, who introduced the legislation, was asked how it would be enforced and answered that it would be via a “sports physical”. Does this mean a “genital inspection”, a Democrat asked. Wasinger said she couldn’t recall. I don’t know about you, but if I introduced legislation that would have a massive impact on people’s lives, I’d try and recall a few details about it.
Kansas isn’t the only state trying to block trans girls’ participation in sports. More than 14 states have passed bills targeting trans people in sports. And, of course, it’s not just sports that are being targeted. Republicans want to stop trans people existing in public at all. At least 452 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the US since the start of this year, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), with a large number of these targeting trans people.
When it comes to trans people playing sports, the people pushing anti-trans legislation dress up their bigotry in the language of women’s rights. The Kansas bill is predictably and disingenuously called “The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act”. Let’s be very clear here: banning trans girls from playing sports at school has nothing to do with fairness and everything to do with malice. In 2021 the Associated Press contacted two dozen state lawmakers sponsoring bills that would ban transgender girls from competing on girls’ sports teams in public high schools. In almost every case the sponsors couldn’t cite any examples in their state where trans participation in sport had caused a problem.
It’s perfectly reasonable to have a good faith discussion about whether transgender women who have gone through male puberty might retain an unfair advantage in professional women’s sports. It’s a complex subject and many experts believe regulations should be made on a sport-by-sport basis. But that’s professional sport. School sports are meant to be about inclusivity and team work and having fun. Laws like the one in Kansas aren’t being made because of a scientific consensus, they’re not being made because of ‘fairness’ – they’re being made to hurt and humiliate young trans people. And these laws, I can’t stress enough, will not just affect trans people: they’ll impact everyone who doesn’t conform to rigid gender stereotypes. Indeed, cisgender women who don’t present in a “feminine” way are already being harassed in public bathrooms because of anti-trans hysteria. There is no clear line between trans rights and women’s rights and gay rights: Republicans are coming for all of us.
‘I got a brain injury and a life sentence’: the hidden legacy of male violence against women
“The connection between traumatic brain injury (TBI) and intimate partner violence (IPV) is a global scandal and a public health secret,” the Guardian reports. For the first time, however, a UK study is under way to investigate the long-term brain health of women abused by their partners.
‘Forever chemicals’ linked to infertility in women, study shows
Unless you subsist on foraged berries and thrice-filtered spring water chances are you’re ingesting tons of “forever chemicals”, or PFAS. They’ve been found in 99% of the people in the US. The first known study on the effect of PFAS on female fertility has found that women with higher levels of these chemicals in their blood have a 40% lower chance of becoming pregnant within a year of trying to conceive.
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Women now dominate the book business
“Once upon a time, women authored less than 10% of the new books published in the US each year,” NPR reports. “They now publish more than 50% of them … [and] the average female author sells more books than the average male author. In all this, the book market is an outlier when compared to many other creative realms, which continue to be overwhelmingly dominated by men.”
The week in pawtriarchy
A bunch of researchers recently performed magic tricks for monkeys in the name of scientific discovery. It turns out that monkeys were more likely to be tricked if they had opposable thumbs. “It’s about the embodiment of knowledge,” one of the scientists explained. “How one’s fingers and thumbs move helps to shape the way we think, and the assumptions we make about the world.” Basically the monkey has to be capable of doing the action in the trick to fall for it. Totally bananas.