It’s only the second week of 2021, and legislators across 13 states have already introduced 19 bills aimed at stripping away the rights of transgender people.
This onslaught suggests that the U.S. is on track to see a huge amount of anti-trans legislation, according to a tally by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) provided to VICE News. There were 52 bills that explicitly attacked trans rights in 2020, a record, the ACLU found.
The bills introduced so far in 2021, like those from 2020, are mainly focused on prohibiting health care for trans kids or keeping them from participating in sporting events that match their gender. Their texts are, at times, identical, suggesting that they could be based on model legislation provided to state legislators by a special interest group. This kind of “copy-and-paste” legislation occurs across the political spectrum but is a prominent tactic among conservative groups.
“It’s certainly the most aggressive attack I’ve seen,” said Chase Strangio, deputy director for Trans Justice at the ACLU. “At a time when perhaps bill-drafting and government might be slowed down by the states due […]
There is another side to this problem, and one that women have not been allowed to discuss, being silenced, threatened, and deplatformed. Even suggest that someone who has decided he is “really a woman” may not be entitled to demand instant entry into hard earned women’s spaces that were created as safe zones from male violence and entitlement such as women’s shelters, women’s empowerment groups, women’s rape centers, and lesbian spaces, results in instant outcry. Yet the issue is complex, and the female experience, which is determined by biological realities such as pregnancy, rape culture, domestic violence, and other feminist issues, is a reality that extends beyond “feeling like a woman”. To say men are not bigger, stronger and often faster than female atheletes is to deny reality, and if one does some reading about this, it is easy to see how this has impacted female sports. I wish people would open discourse on this, instead of, as men have always done, simply shutting up any woman who doesn’t agree with their entitlement. https://www.feministcurrent.com/2017/11/23/trans-activists-truly-cared-feminism-respect-womens-spaces/
I strongly agree. The idea that not letting biological males compete in women’s sports is all about trans rights is absurd. What about the rights of women in sports which have been non existent and trampled on for decades? I especially like the last sentence which asks for open discourse instead of asking women to shut up and play at a disadvantage. This whole sports issue to me smacks of latent misogyny.