Tag: ACLU of Connecticut

  • Including those who happen to be transgender

    The ACLU of Connecticut is digging in.

    From the statement:

    We, the undersigned Connecticut-based organizations committed to women’s rights and gender justice, support the full inclusion of transgender people in athletics. We are in solidarity with Andraya Yearwood, Terry Miller, and all other transgender student athletes in the Constitution State. As organizations that care deeply about ending discrimination against women and girls, we support laws and policies that protect transgender people from discrimination, including in participation in sports.

    Together, we reject unfounded fears about transgender athletes in our state and reject the suggestion that cisgender women and girls benefit from the exclusion of women and girls who happen to be transgender. Instead, we recognize that all women and girls are harmed when some are denied opportunities to participate in sports because of stereotypes and fear.We proudly celebrate Andraya, Terry, and other transgender Connecticut athletes.

    So…they simply assert that women and girls lose out when men and boys are not allowed to compete against them in otherwise sex-segregated sports. They don’t explain how or why that’s the case, they just announce it.

    They also resort to tortuous backward wording to do so. The claim is not that women and girls “benefit from the exclusion of women and girls who happen to be transgender.” The claim is that women and girls are harmed by the inclusion of men and boys who claim to be transgender. Note that one issue here is that we don’t actually even know if Yearwood and Miller really are trans or if they’re just temporarily trans for the purpose of winning a bunch of high school races. I strongly suspect it’s the latter. I doubt that they really do “happen to be” transgender, as the statement so smarmily puts it; I think they may well be pretending to be transgender with all due deliberation.

    We proudly celebrate Andraya, Terry, and other transgender Connecticut athletes. We applaud the parents, teammates, coaches, athletic directors, school administrators, and others who have welcomed transgender athletes with encouragement and respect. And we fully support Connecticut laws and policies designed to protect equal access to athletics for all women and girls, including those who happen to be transgender.

    That’s all it takes, then – just keep talking about “all women and girls” meaning including men and boys who call themselves women and girls. Just ignore the fact that trans women and girls are not literally women and girls in the sense that literal women and girls are; just keep repeating the lie over and over and over again until everyone sees the same number of lights…Only that will be never. (Repeating the “happen to be” is meant to coach us to think of it as a tiny, trivial, meaningless attribute, as opposed to the difference between literally being of this sex not that one, and claiming to.)

    There are three more paragraphs of similar bilge, all equally unconvincing.

    Image result for 1984 2+2=5

  • What civil liberty is this exactly?

    The Connecticut ACLU is working with the two trans-identified high school boys who race with the girls and scoop up all the prizes.

    Two transgender high school track and field athletes responded Wednesday to a Title IX complaint alleging that the runners prevented other female runners from top finishes and potentially from college scholarships.

    The complaint filed earlier this week on behalf of three female track and field athletes in Connecticut argues that the two transgender runners, both of whom were assigned male at birth but identify as female, have “competitive advantages.” The complaint seeks to overturn the policy of the state’s high school athletics governing board, the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, which allows athletes to compete based on the gender they identify with.

    Both boys are visibly much taller and more muscular than the girls on the team. Of course they have competitive advantages, and of course they’re taking advantage of trans mania to win races they would otherwise lose.

    “I have faced discrimination in every aspect of my life and I no longer want to remain silent,” said Bloomfield High track and field standout Terry Miller, one of the two transgender athletes cited in the complaint. “I am a girl and I am a runner. I participate in athletics just like my peers to excel, find community and meaning in my life. It is both unfair and painful that my victories have to be attacked and my hard work ignored.”

    It’s not unfair for boys to race against boys.

    I wonder how supportive Terry Miller would be if all the fastest boys “identified as girls” and joined him in competing against the actual girls.

    Miller, along with Andraya Yearwood, who attends Cromwell High, have been working with the American Civil Liberties Union as the complaint begins to unfold. Miller won the State Open 200-meter title for the second straight year in 2019 and won the Class S titles in the 100 and 200, as well as the New England 200-meter championship. Yearwood, who is also transgender, finished third in the 100 meters in Class S and fourth in the 100 in the State Open.

    Because they were competing against girls.

    The national American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney also issued a statement Wednesday, calling it “heartbreaking.”

    Attacking two black young women who are simply participating in the sport they love just because they are transgender is wrong, it is dangerous, and it is distorts Title IX, which is a law that protects all students on the basis of sex,” ACLU attorney Chase Strangio said. “Efforts to undermine Title IX by claiming it doesn’t apply to a subset of girls will ultimately hurt all students.”

    On the basis of sex: men are not women and women are not men.

    Boys are not “a subset of girls,” even if they are trans. Boys are not girls.

    Title IX:

    No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

    Miller and Yearwood are boys and should compete with boys. Saying boys should compete with boys is not exclusion or denial of benefits or discrimination.

    The Connecticut ACLU has been tweeting about this a lot. Tough shit, girls, you lose.

    Goodbye girls. You can always go back to knitting.