Recently, the sports world has been going through immense changes in reconciling with its history of discrimination. Coaches who are women are becoming common in sports that are male dominated. More men and women have come out and are proud of how they identify. Hell, people even got to witness the first female football player score points in a Power 5 conference game.
However, a dark trend is rising in the world of sports.
Four states, including Tennessee and Mississippi, have passed bills that ban trans women athletes from participating in sports at the K-12 level, though some extend even to the collegiate level.
Now, I understand where these people are coming from. Student athletes work hard to be the best. By doing so, it allows them to win scholarships, awards and receive recognition. However, blaming their losses or failures on transgender women athletes is immoral.
The creation of this bill continues the trend of disrespecting trans women athletes. To see people comment on how “trans women should have their own league” or “it’s not fair to real women” (seriously, read these comments on a recent youtube video on the subject) hurts like hell because trans women do not deserve the hate.
They transitioned to make themselves feel comfortable, not to take advantage of a sport. These women are not Barry Bonds or Lance Armstrong. They just have a passion to compete and play and taking it away from them will hurt them.
I’ve had a similar situation happen to me in high school. As a freshman, I wanted to continue my passion for music. I was good at it, and I received all the recognition that I could get. Nonetheless, my parents took it away from me. It hurt. I felt depressed for quite some time because I couldn’t participate simply because I was told not to. I even lied and played behind their backs just so I could attempt to play music again.
This same exact thing will happen to trans women athletes. Once they realize that they can’t participate anymore, they mentally will go through a state of depression. There have even been studies that link trans women to depression.
This has to be one of most useless pieces of legislation I have ever seen. Politicians keep thinking that it’s the right thing to do, that women need to have an equal playing field. That cis women deserve to win.
But taking away the things that trans women love to do is transphobic. No way around it. This bill is being passed during a time that senators and governors want to take away liberties and needs from the trans community. It’s like they are tasked with trying to make it difficult to be trans. It’s time that things go a different direction.
As a fan of sports, I want to see it evolve, and it was going in the right path. Now it’s at a standstill. I know we want to keep the game competitive. But this is not the way of doing it.
Allowing trans women student athletes to suffer for the benefit of cis women athletes should be condemned. Now should be the time to set up to the plate and defend trans men and women. If we want fair sports, we must give all athletes the chance to pursue their passions. That especially includes trans women athletes. If we do that, there will be more historic moments to come.
