When I was in elementary school, my twin sister and I played in a youth soccer league. We were the only girls on an otherwise all-boys team. Now, I don’t know how or why this happened. I do not know if this was a league where boys and girls played together on the same teams or if our dad talked our way onto a boys’ team (which is something he probably would have done, overstating our talent and abilities, but I can’t ask him because he is dead).
What I can tell you is that the boys absolutely hated us. Was it because we were girls? Yes. Was it because we were terrible at soccer? Also yes.
I do not have a lot of solid memories of my time on this team. I remember one game where it was raining and the field was basically mud puddles with small patches of grass. I remember having zero idea of what I was supposed to be doing every time I was on the field. There was no coaching, no explanation of positions. I remember hating every second of it.
When we were in middle school, my sister and I were on the seventh and eighth grade girls basketball team. We were not very good. I believe my sister scored two points between the two seasons. I scored zero. My sharpest memories about that time had to do with one of my teammates. Her dad would scream at her from the sidelines. And I mean scream. It made everyone, players and parents, very uncomfortable. But no one ever said anything to him. I also remember that one day after practice my sister and I were waiting for our parents to pick us up. We were horsing around and this same teammate with the screaming dad came up behind me and pulled my pants down. I was on my period and was wearing one of those giant 1980s maxi pads. Everybody laughed. Except for me.
What I am trying to convey is that, for me, school sports were a source of humiliation and anxiety. But I am very aware that for many kids, school sports are a source of community, friendship, fun and exercise. Which is how it should be.
And yet, school sports — specifically, girls and women’s sports — have become the nexus of an ugly “debate” in this country. To hear conservatives tell it, transgender kids playing sports is the biggest problem facing this country. Something, they say, must be done to “save” girls’ sports.
That’s why voters in Washington will be asked in November whether or not the state should subject all girls wishing to play sports to an unnecessary and potentially invasive medical assessment to “prove” they are real girls.
“This fall, voters will weigh in on IL26-638, a ballot initiative seeking to amend Washington state law to bar transgender athletes from participating on girls’ sports teams specifically,” reports The Cut. “If it passes, the measure would impose special eligibility requirements on athletes from kindergarten through high school, mandating that a health-care provider certify the players’ sex assigned at birth through genetic screening, a testosterone-levels test or an examination of their reproductive anatomy at their yearly sports physical.”
Now, my teenage son just had his annual sports physical. I was there for the entire thing. The doctor asked about aches and pains, concussions and exercise-induced asthma. They also talked a little about weight lifting, but only because my son specifically asked. The doctor filled out a form, took our $50, and sent us on our way.
The doctor did not ask my son if he was biologically male. Did not insist on seeing his reproductive anatomy (which isn’t even a sure-fire way to tell if someone is “biologically” male or female), did not insist on genetic testing (which I doubt our insurance would have even covered. Now, I did have genetic testing and our insurance did cover it, but that’s because I had breast cancer at age 36, not because the sports police demanded it).
And, look, I know my son isn’t the target of these laws. But my heart breaks for the parents who love and adore their kids as much as I do mine, for whom something that should be as simple as a sports physical becomes a way to deny your kid’s humanity.
And I know that the anti-trans mob is not after cisgender guys. They are after cisgender girls and women, though. Transgender girls and women just come first.
And so does sports. Come first, that is. The mob that hates trans people also hates women. They don’t care about girls’ and women’s sports, but they have found sports to be a softer entry point in their quest to chisel away women’s rights.
Let’s hope that Washington does the right thing in November.