GOP lawmaker left speechless when asked if he's trans during a hearing

https://lemmy.world/post/30328239

GOP lawmaker left speechless when asked if he's trans during a hearing - Lemmy.World

He huffed about how the question wasn’t “appropriate” even though his bill would result in kids being asked that same question. A Republican state rep from Michigan testifying about his anti-trans sports bill on Monday was left speechless after an out Democratic colleague began his questioning by asking, “Representative, can you tell me: are you trans?” A long beat staring down out gay Democratic state Rep. Mike McFall followed, before state Rep. Jason Woolford ® managed to reply, “Are you?” “I’m actually going somewhere with this,” he said to lawmakers in the small chamber. “Because I want to know, how does a 14-year-old girl prove whether or not she’s trans to a 50-year-old coach?”

I’m pretty sure he’s MS13. We should deport him just in case.
No, he’s tren de aragua. He’s part of the invasion and should be transported to CECOT post haste
I’m pretty sure he has an invisible tattoo.
I love this. This is a really good, simple, impactful strategy.

The GOP is just a bad debater.

My immediate thought was to say something like “That question proves my point! We have no way of knowing who is or isn’t trans without careful testing!”

“Okay, I’ll inspect your genitals, drop 'em and we’ll prove it to everyone”
problem is: these bigots would LOVE to show off the little junk they have in exchange for seeing others.

They’d probably have a sickly grin on too, because it brings back fond memories of Uncle Touchy’s Naked Puzzle Basement.

Spoiler: the rep is uncle touchy

“That’s why we’ll have to fire a dozen teachers; so we can have trained inspectors on hand.”

You have to put yourself in their mindset…

I’m sure they’ll have plenty of proper god fearing Christian good old boys just lining up to do their solemn duty.
I’d like to think that line wouldn’t play too well with the general public but I’m actually not so sure anymore
My phrasing was deliberately over the top, but you are sadly correct…

“Under this bill, coaches will ask their students this very question. High school coaches are the ones who will be performing this so-called ‘qualified testing’, and it starts with this question. Are you trans?”

“What if I ask you to prove it? Will you be comfortable doing that for me? Would you prefer we bring in a high school coach?”

“When do you think it’s okay for someone to ask you to prove your gender? What if my colleagues and I are uncomfortable sharing the Congressional bathrooms and athletic facilities with you, until we know for sure what you are hiding in your pants? Do we have a right to ask you to prove it?”

Do we have a right to ask you to prove it?”

As a GOP master [de]bater I’d jump on that last one. “Certainly you have a right. I’ll bring in a note from my doctor tomorrow,”

The great thing about this is that we have now stepped past the “why” part of the argument and gotten to the “how.”

"To clarify, sir, a medical note is unacceptable. In order to comply with this bill, do you believe you should be forced to provide your original birth certificate before you can participate in any sports activities? "

I take the long view. In the 1950s Conservatives would tell you that Rock and Roll was a danger.

Whatever nonsense they come up with today will pass on and they will find some other nonsense to scare their voters.

And in the meantime some minority will suffer unnecessary harassment i guess
Well, you certainly can’t expect the Right to start dealing with facts, can you?

I take the long view too.

In the 1950s they would tell you that being gay is a sin. They would call homosexuality a danger to society, a threat to children, a product of brainwashing and perversion and all sorts of abhorrent hateful things.

In the 2020s most of them are saying the exact same things about being transgender. That they are a damger to society, a threat to children, a product of brainwashing and perversion.

But an increasing number are yet again saying the exact same things about gay people, and celebrating that they can finally “say it like it is”. Those that never stopped, that is.

In the 1950s many of them would also tell you that <insert racial slur here> don’t belong in positions of leadership or deserve jobs or support. That they are unqualified, uneducated, inferior, lazy, or outright violent criminals.

In the 2020s many of them are saying that <insert racial minority here> don’t belong in positions of leadership or deserve jobs or support. That they are unqualified, uneducated, untrustworthy, lazy, or outright violent criminals.

If you really believe that any of this is new, that any of this is different, that any of it has ever had anything to do with taste in music rather, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

Whatever nonsense they come up with today will be used to spread hate, fear, and ignorance among their voters and keep racial, sexual, and gender minorities oppressed and vilified as the useful scapegoats for all of problems of the day that their nonsense often caused and yet is somehow hailed as a solution.

Just wanted to let you know I saved a copy of this text to share with my friend group. This encapsulates so much of the conservative logos in a way that makes it transparent what’s going on today.

Plenty of people have pointed out that trans panic is just gay panic rebranded for the modern day but this was the most eloquent and concise way of putting it I’ve ever seen in text format. Thanks for taking the time.

From the State House to the White House, we are saying that we will no longer allow our daughters and women to be taken advantage of by insecure men…

Yeah, we should protect them from these insecure, conservative men who constantly think about other people’s genitals.

Was this quote from a republican?? How can you be so self unaware?

Trans men don’t exist of course.

Or we are autistic teenagers that need to be tortured receiving “therapy.”

“Nothing To Hide, Nothing To Fear.” Riiiight MAGAs?
I swear to god republicans found out Penis Inspection Day wasn’t real and are now making it a thing to save face.

Hahaha… hol’ up… what do you mean not real?

/s

I just hate that it takes my pastor the whole day
Penis inspection day was real though. Up until ≈1974 in the USA you had to show your dick to go swimming in public pools.
For real-real? Saurce?
Eps 61-80 — The Dollop

The Dollop

Damn @.@
The section referenced:

The Dark Secret of Swimming Pools

Main

· “A Conversation with Jeff Wiltse, Author of Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America.” University of North Carolina Press. (May 1, 2010) www.ibiblio.org/uncp/media/…/WiltseQ & A_pb.pdf

· Wiltse, Jeff. Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America. The University of North Carolina Press. (April 23, 2007)

· Gale, Neil, Ph.D. “The Origins of Nude Swimming in Illinois Public Schools and Community Pools.” Digital Research Library of Illinois History Journal. (December 20, 2016). …blogspot.com/…/the-origins-of-nude-swimming-in.h…

Others

· “Nude Male Swimming” Collection of articles. Historic Archives sites.google.com/site/…/photographs

· Markowitz, Eric. “Until Fairly Recently, The YMCA Actually Required Swimmers To Be Nude.” vocativ. (April 29, 2014) vocativ.com/…/fairly-recently-ymca-actually-requi…

· Jumper-Swim. “The Origins of Nude Swimming at the Y & Public Schools.” Historic Archives. sites.google.com/site/…/jumper-swim

· Norm. “Swimming naked: my high school swim team did!” Chicago Then. (November 12, 2013) chicagonow.com/…/swimming-naked-my-high-school-sw…

· All Things Considered. “Plunging into Public Pools’ Contentious Past.” [radio] NPR (May 26, 2007). www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104…

What, you guys didn’t have penis inspection day in gym class?
That’s only in the girls class.
No for real. Penis inspection happened like… every year?
This was definitely a thing in middle school PE class back in the 90s.
2010’s aus school, if you got injured in that area, they just called an ambulance, not the nurses thing to deal with lol

We had a coach in middle school who made it very clear to us on the first day that’d we’d “dressing out” every day and we’d be expected to shower because you stink after you play sports. For the first month or so he stood outside the locker room and made sure your hair was wet, he didn’t inspect any penises, or even come into the locker room, but he made sure a gym full of 11yr old boys knew they were supposed to wash themselves.

It was a few decades ago, and he was the same gym coach that taught “health/sex education” so I get it. It was pretty uncomfortable and awkward but some people need to be told to wash themselves. I still smell grown people out in public who clearly never had a coach explain stank to them.

RIP. Coach J you were alright even to the nerds

Awww, you just made me feel respect toward a gym teacher for the first time in my life.

The worst part was how they did it in groups. First they made you take your shirt off for the scoliosis exam. Then you put your shirt back on and drop trou for the penis inspection.

As a fat kid it was terrible

What the fuck? Where do you guys live?
America, obviously

My middle school held an assembly over a fad of “dick tapping” had taken over the boys in the school. Apparently it had become “a thing” for them to just reach over and slap their friends’ dicks, and it got so bad that we needed a damn assembly.

All us girls were extremely confused. We legit thought most of the boys in our school must have secretly been gay if they wanted to touch each other’s dicks so badly. Even if the boys weren’t gay, we figured they must be pretty frickin’ stupid to play such a dumb “game.” A lot of us had crushes evaporate in an instant, and I for one never looked at the boys in my class the same again.

My first job in the service industry included quite a bit of guys trying to ball tap each other. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That’s even weirder. At least the boys in my middle school had the excuse of being, well, middle school-aged boys.
To be fair we were all teens in high school.
“Gay chicken” is a time honored line cook tradition, as are stupid pain rituals.

The “game” is just inflicting pain on other boys at random and it has taken many forms over the years. My dad told me they used to play “Dead Arm”, the whole thing was just punching someone in the upper arm as hard as you could when they weren’t looking.

Testosterone is a hell of a drug.

Yeah, that’s not testosterone. That’s toxic masculinity. Its cultural, not ubiquitous in all cultures.
What is Jason Woodford hiding?!?!?

I guess I’m out of the loop on this subject and honestly I don’t know if the information I have is factual or not.

Do trans women generally have a physical advantage over women? Are there any rules for this kind of thing? Do they need to be transitioning or taking suppression drugs? This is a serious question.

Human beings are sexually dimorphic, but most of the advantages or disadvantages are negligible or can be overcome with training, so it makes little difference. It makes even less difference in middle and high school aged children, since everyone is at (somewhat) different points developmentally anyway.
Also sports were never fair to begin with, they are literally competitions of ableism
Maybe but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t attempt to make them as fair as possible.
I disagree, especially if it means auditing childrens genetalia to vindicate a chud.

Exactly, we’re talking about two different things when comparing children’s sports and Olympic sports and it’s easy to conflate the two.

Olympic competition needs fair rules to ensure the best humanity can produce is rewarded.

In children’s sports it’s more important kids learn skills, fitness, cooperation, and find a sense of community. So unless there is a massive outlier, the rules should maximise inclusion over “fairness”.

Imma keep it a buck fifty, I don’t give a chicken fried fuck about fairness in any sport. Let them juice, drug, dope whatever, if they can do it then just document the conditions under which they achieved their times,reps, whatever.

This whole thing is just a fools errand to give chuds a foothold to deny transcare and further trans erasure.