Fear!

Fear the trans athlete to dominate the high school sports. Fear the trans student using the bathrooms. , That is the message that the Republicans are pushing this election seasons.

Do transgender athletes have a competitive advantage over cisgender athletes?
Among the many questions surrounding this topic, one has risen to the top - do transgender girls actually have an advantage over cisgender girls in athletics?
CBS8
By Steve Price
November 8, 2021


As transgender people continue their fight to be accepted for who they are, more states are taking action to stand in their way. According to the ACLU, 31 states have considered bills this year that would ban transgender youth from competing in school sports.

At Verify, we've received a lot of questions on this topic. Specifically - whether transgender girls actually have an advantage over cisgender girls in athletics as some of these bills claim.

So let's start with what makes a cisgender person different from a transgender person. A cisgender person is someone whose gender identity aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth. A transgender person's gender identity does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth. Supporters of the bills argue testosterone levels in trans women give them competitive advantages - including speed and strength.
[…]
According to Dr. Turban, there aren't many transgender athletes across high school, college and professional sports... so data comparing their athletic performance with cisgender athletes is limited.

“It's not zero, but it's not a lot,” Dr. Turban said. “And people will search far and wide to find an example of this being a problem.”
[…]
He says supporters of anti-trans legislation often point to the 2019 Connecticut state track championship. During the meet - two transgender girls, Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood, finished first and second in the women's 55-meter race. Following the meet, three cisgender girls, including third-place finisher Chelsea Mitchell, filed a lawsuit over the trans girls' eligibility to race. But a year later, in the 2020 state championship, Mitchell beat Miller to win the championship.

The Republicans and their ally Alliance Defending Freedom lost their case and are now appealing the case. The Hartford Courant reported back in April,

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Chatigny has dismissed on procedural grounds a lawsuit filed in federal court against the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, which sought to halt transgender female athletes from participating in girls high school sports in Connecticut, but the plaintiffs say they will appeal the ruling.

Well now the case is before the Appeal’s court. The CBS8 article goes on to say,

But Dr. Tim Roberts, a researcher on the study, says there's more to this story. He agrees that when the trans women were first beginning hormone treatments, they outperformed cisgender women in tests that included push-ups, sit-ups and running, but by their second year on hormone therapy that was no longer the case.

“The performance of the transgender women was indistinguishable from the performance of the average cis woman in the Air Force,” Dr. Roberts said.

He believes his research was misrepresented in the legislation.

“They're cherry-picking the one number that agrees with their pre-existing notions and using it as an excuse to do a lot of other things,” he said.

And the article ends with…

So we can Verify, the claim that transgender women have a competitive advantage over cisgender women in sports is inconclusive due to a lack of scientific data at this time. But medical experts do know that participating in sports has many positive benefits and they fear banning transgender children from youth sports will have a negative impact.

Only about 5 percent of the high school athletes go on to college sports!

High school sports is not about college scholarships but rather learning leadership skills, working together, and building life long friendships.

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The right to privacy.

Our right to privacy seems to go out the window when it involves trans people. When did it become okay to video people in the bathroom?

‘Help protect me’: Classmates secretly recorded video of student who is transgender
WSOC TV
By Ken Lemon
November 9, 2021


CLEVELAND COUNTY, N.C. — Classmates reportedly secretly recorded video of a student who is transgender in a boy’s restroom at Burns High School in Cleveland County and posted it to social media.

“I was floored,” Clay Sentell told Channel 9.

The 16-year-old student said friends saw the videos posted on Snapchat. One video showed Sentell washing his hands. The male students who recorded the videos also showed the junior wearing high heels while in the bathroom.

“I felt like my privacy was invaded. I was terrified,” Sentell told reporter Ken Lemon.
[…]
Sentell’s mother, Annie Sentell, said her son told her about the videos last Tuesday. Annie Sentell said she emailed the principal multiple times with no response. She said last Thursday she emailed that she was going to show up at the office on Friday morning.

In Connecticut that would have been a felony. In Connecticut it is a felony to record someone where they have a right to expect privacy.

The video recording should be considered a hate crime because it creates fear,

“It’s made me feel nervous,” Clay Sentell said. “It’s made me feel scared. It’s made me feel upset but regardless of all that, I’m still going to love them.”

I think that the student who videoed them should be made to clean out the bathrooms in high school for a year, the principal should be fired and I hope that the Sentell’s win their lawsuit.