Sad

It is very sad that the Republican party believes that their only way to win elections is on the deaths of trans children. Here in Connecticut I have been told that the number of trans high school athletes are less than twenty out of over a thousand high school athletes, and I imagine that in Texas the number is also relatively small.

Hundreds of bills targeting LGBTQ+ people under consideration nationwide, Human Rights Campaign says
This year alone, 17 bills that discriminate against LGBTQ+ people have been signed into law in 10 states, the Human Rights Campaign said Monday.
The Hill
By Brooke Migdon
May 10, 2022


Story at a glance

• More than 335 bills that would negatively affect LGBTQ+ Americans are currently being considered by state lawmakers across the country, the Human Rights Campaign said Tuesday in a weekly update of “bad bills.”
• At least 10 states this year have signed anti-LGBTQ+ legislation into law, the HRC said, including Alabama, whose gender-affirming care ban went into effect Sunday.
• Seven states this year have signed transgender athlete bans into law — and more are coming, the HRC said.
• Keep in mind, trans people are something like only 0.5 to 1 percent of the population, so all these laws are targeting a minority of a minority. Why?

The article goes on to say this about trans athletes.

Proponents of these measures have argued that inherent “biological differences” exist between males and females, and transgender women and girls hold an unfair advantage over cisgender female competitors. Legislators in favor of transgender athlete bans regularly invoke the recent victories of Lia Thomas, a swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania who in March became the first transgender woman to win a national Division I title.

WAIT A MINUTE!

All throughout my life high school sports was sold as building character, leadership skills, and teamwork. So what they are saying is that trans are not worthy to learn those skills?

Or has sports become more about winning? Winning at all cost.

Or some have said it is college scholarships that are important. Well less than one percent of high school athletes receive scholarships and of those a small sliver goes on to the pros. So if it all about going on to the pros then the whole high school sports programs are to send maybe 4 or 5 high school athletes to go on to the pros to make millions. Does that seem fair to you? That we deny trans athletes the right to learn life skills because we want to send a half a dozen students on to the pros?

The opposition to the anti-trans sports bills say…

But those opposed to these bills say they are solutions to nonexistent problems that put the mental health and well-being of transgender children at risk. Transgender athlete bans passed this year are “further isolating trans kids and preventing them from having the same opportunities as their friends,” the HRC tweeted Monday, “and more are close to passing.”

And if this is all about teaching life leadership skills, then what is it teaching? That discrimination against marginalized peoples is okay? That bullying minorities is okay? That winning is the only thing that matters?

This isn’t about sports, this is about stirring up hate and anger to get the conservative to get out and vote and donate.

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The Assistant Secretary for Health has spoken out on the anti-trans bills popping up in Republican states.

Rachel Levine calls state anti-LGBTQ bills disturbing and dangerous to trans youth
NPR Radio
By Selena Simmons-Duffin
April 29, 2022


The highest ranking transgender official in U.S. history will give a speech in Texas Saturday, urging physicians-in-training to fight political attacks against young trans people and their families.

Adm. Rachel Levine, the U.S. assistant secretary for health, will make a speech in Fort Worth at the Out For Health Conference at Texas Christian University.

In prepared remarks shared exclusively with NPR, she writes: "Trans youth in particular are being hounded in public and driven to deaths of despair at an alarming rate. Fifty-two percent of all transgender and nonbinary young people in the U.S. seriously contemplated killing themselves in 2020. Think about how many of them thought it was better to die than to put up with any more harassment, scapegoating and intentional abuse."

Political attacks against trans young people are on the rise across the country. Over 100 anti-trans bills have been introduced in state houses this year, according to an analysis by Freedom for All Americans and the Guardian. Many of these legislative attacks use scientific language to justify their political aims, she says. In her prepared remarks, she concludes: "The language of medicine and science is being used to drive people to suicide."

We need to stir up our base to go out and vote this fall!

If you do not vote then you are giving your implicit consent to the attacks on us by the right-wing bigots.