TWIBS: WA Considers Trans Athlete Ban for No Reason
Another day, another trans athlete ban. Soon it’s going to be more expedient to list which sports and places trans people can play sports in.
Humor by Alyssa Steinsiek
This Week in Barrel Scraping (TWIBS) is Assigned Media’s oldest column! Every Friday, Alyssa Steinsiek digs deep from the well of transphobia and finds the most obnoxious, goofy thing transphobes have said or obsessed over during the week and tears it to shreds.
Rural Washington state athletics programs are seeking to pointlessly complicate a non-issue in hopes of scoring culture war points with nobody, and also, water is wet! Yes, the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association has received two proposals that mostly target young transgender girls seeking to participate in the human right that is sport.
Amendments #7 and #8 would ban transgender girls from girls’ sports (using language like “assigned at birth,” naturally) and create a separate athletic program for transgender students, respectively. This would directly amend the WIAA’s existing rule that student athletes can compete “in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity.”
What has suddenly spurred (mostly rural) Washington communities to demand that the WIAA effectively ban transgender student athletes from competition, you ask? Why, of course it was almost certainly the success of a singular trans athlete! In June of this year, Verónica Garcia won the State 2A girls 400-meter run at the track and field championships in Tacoma.
Garcia helped her team win a 2A title, but only beat the second place runner by a single second, and fell nearly two full seconds short of setting a state meet record in the 400. Like most trans athletes, Verónica performs well, but is not the record-smashing effortless world champion that her hateful detractors want people to imagine when they hear “transgender athlete.”
David VanderYacht, superintendent of the Lynden School District whose name is comical and must be mocked regularly, confirmed that Garcia’s win prompted his school board to demand that he take immediate action against this one (1) transgender girl who won a single competition without even breaking any state records.
“It did create some energy in our community some dialogue around fairness and support that ultimately resulted in Lynden School District Board of directors passing a resolution directing me to work within the WIAA amendment process to develop a proposal that would protect the integrity of girls sports while also honoring the dignity of all student athletes,” VanderYacht said stupidly to KING 5 news in mid-December. Lying, VanderYacht added, “We want our transgender student athletes in relationship and community and where they feel a sense of belonging.”
Both proposals will be evaluated this month and, if approved, face a final vote at the WIAA Representative Assembly in April. Unfortunately, this isn’t new, nor does it show any signs of slowing down; twenty-six states prohibit transgender athletes from participating on the correct team, despite the fact that most of these states have less than a dozen trans people trying to participate in sports. These rules are part of a broader conservative strategy to ban trans people from daily life, whether it’s sports or bathrooms. People like David VanderYacht can pretend that they care about trans athletes having options by proposing separate competitions for them to participate in, but they know that there aren’t even enough of these kids to field teams or compete against each other.
It’s an empty, meaningless gesture from obnoxious bigots. Don’t let it distract you from their hateful policy suggestions, and never stop supporting these kids as they speak out against the ghouls that want to take their rights away.
Alyssa Steinsiek is a professional writer who spends too much time playing video games!
