Their dreams as star runners

The ACLU is worked up over the “right” of male people who claim to be trans to compete against female people in sports, again.

Terry and Andraya are two transgender girls who are following their dreams as star runners in Connecticut. But as athletes on the track, they face harmful discrimination instead of accolades.

We’re fighting alongside Terry and Andraya for our right to live as our authentic selves.

Live as your “authentic selves” all you like; knock yourselves out. But that doesn’t translate to mean you get to live as your physically inauthentic self at the expense of people who are oppressed and marginalized on the basis of their physically authentic bodies, aka girls and women.

Take the pledge, they tell us.

Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood are two transgender girls who are following their dreams as star runners in Connecticut. But as champions on the track, they face harmful attacks rather than the accolades they deserve. While Andraya and Terry’s teammates and coaches support them, some cisgender athletes want to keep them out of girls’ sports.

Let’s not forget that Miller and Yearwood were not star runners when they competed against other boys. They are “star runners” only when they compete against girls. They’re “following their dreams” by switching to competing against a class of people who can’t beat them, because of differences in skeleton, muscles, lung capacity, and the like. What they face are not “harmful attacks” but objections to the fact that they’re cheating the girls they’re competing against.

And I’m pretty sure the ACLU is lying when it says their teammates support them. I’m pretty sure we’ve heard from some who decidedly don’t.

Transgender people have the right to participate in sports consistent with who they are, just like anyone. Denying this right is pure discrimination.

But it’s not who they are. It’s who they aren’t. They’re not girls; they’re not boys who have the “souls” of girls and therefore get to compete against them. They may be boys who think they “feel like” girls, but I doubt it – I think they’re just straight up cheating.

And yes, it’s “discrimination” in the sense that we know how to discriminate between girls and boys. It’s not “discrimination” in the sense of unjust neglect or punishment or rejection.

The marginalization of trans student-athletes is rooted in the same kind of gender discrimination and stereotyping that has held back cisgender women athletes.

No it is not. Boys don’t get to appropriate the oppression of girls so that they can win races against them and get opportunities that should have gone to the girls.

When misinformation about biology and gender is used to bar transgender girls from sports it amounts to the same form of sex discrimination that has long been prohibited under Title IX, a law that protects all students – including trans people – on the basis of sex.

Girls who are transgender are girls. Period.

Period shmeriod – adding “period” doesn’t make it true. Are they six?

Updating to add: Josh points out that that photo is not of Miller and Yearwood, it’s a stock photo of female legs. Dishonest much, ACLU?

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