 I am the proud mother of a trans daughter and every time these bills come up I ask you to think about what it would be like if your daughter was the one that you were talking about. What would it be like if you were telling your daughter that she does not have the right to be who she is? Every one of you has children. I ask you to please stop targeting our trans community that is already vulnerable, that already faces so many challenges. Why are you doing this? It is a tiny portion of people across the country that identify as trans and not a single one of them is doing anything to harm you or your family. Stop it. Stop it. We have better things to do in Congress, things that could actually lift people up across this country. You just watched a portion of Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal's speech during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on HR 7187. Now you might have not heard of this bill but this is a transphobic piece of legislation that mandates discrimination against people like her daughter in sports. Now it was so nice to see a lawmaker passionately defend trans people and stand up to these GOP bullies and it's obvious why she was so emotional there. I mean this hits close to home she has a daughter who's being targeted by these Republicans but it was also really refreshing to see her point out how they could actually be using that time to do something constructive and I don't know draft policies that help the American people but instead Republicans are choosing to target a community that is already marginalized and already vulnerable so it's not just cruel it's a waste of time. Now throughout the course of this hearing Democrats forcefully pushed back against the transphobia that was espoused by Republicans and it was very powerful to watch and we don't oftentimes get feel-good videos on this channel but I've got to share this with you because this genuinely made me happy to see. It gave me a little bit of optimism right so we'll get to some of these videos in particular specifically testimonies from Becca Bullint, Jerry Nadler even who had really great things to say but first I just want to talk about the legislation itself because even though trans women and girls are their primary targets HR 7187 could affect cis women too by subjecting them to genital exams if they're suspected of being trans and they want to play sports so in a breakdown by the equality caucus here's some key takeaways from a thread that they wrote about this legislation on twitter they say the GOP already voted to ban trans girls from school sports but that wasn't enough now instead of addressing the real issues facing girls and women sports like sexual harassment and unequal resources the judiciary committee GOP is pushing another trans sports ban HR 7187 is dangerous for all girls and women not just those who are trans anyone could be forced to undergo invasive exams to quote prove they're not trans that sounds incredibly sus to me this bill opens the floodgates to even more harassment and abuse in women sports endangering every female athlete we're seeing this in states that have banned trans kids from school teams parents are falsely accusing students of being trans and schools are secretly investigating students gender identities without parental consent republicans need to stop their obsession with attacking trans people and instead work across the aisle to address the real issues impacting girls and women in sports and that right there is a really important point to end on because these laws are introduced under the pretense of protecting women sports when trans people aren't a threat to women sports the real threat to women sports as the human rights campaign points out is a lack of funding compared to men's sports for example across six sports schools only spent an average of 71 cents on women's sports for every dollar that they spent on men's sports that includes 40 percent more on travel and equipment as well as 51 percent more on recruitment and of the 15 states that have either passed or introduced bans on trans athletes all of them have significant disparities in funding between male and female sports with an average of 70 cents spent on women's sports for every dollar spent for men across all of these states with Kansas Texas and Kentucky seeing the largest disparities so make no mistake about it the republicans drafting these trans sports bands don't actually care about women's sports they just hate trans people full stop and that was illustrated perfectly in the state of Kentucky one of the states with the worst disparities in sports between men and women by the way when republicans decided to ban the states only known trans athlete from her middle school hockey team even though she literally helped to create that team and save the sport at her school so in her testimony 13-year-old Fisher Wells begged republican lawmakers to let her play in the girls hockey team that she helped to create explaining that there wasn't even enough interest in the sport at her school so she recruited enough girls to form a team and she explained how fun it's been for her and her friends to be able to play hockey together but after explaining all of this and how her presence on the team wasn't controversial her friends wanted to play with her her coach wanted her to play guess what they decided to do they voted anyway to ban her from playing in the hockey team that she literally helped to create i'll say it again this isn't about making women sports more fair it's about being cruel towards trans people now jerry nadler who i rarely give credit to had a phenomenal response to this bill because he for five minutes literally just lays out fact after fact after fact about how this bill is nothing more than a cynical ploy to discriminate against trans people but more than that it also could literally embolden predators let's watch hr 71 87 the so-called protection of women in olympic and amateur sports act is a cynical and dangerous measure this bill would force the national governing bodies or ngbs of various amateur sports to adopt exclusionary transgender policies or face losing their status as an ngb in their respective sport this legislation is yet another ugly attempt by republicans to bully an already vulnerable minority of trans youth athletes for political gain to begin this legislation is the solution in search of a problem the international olympics committee has permitted transgender athletes to compete since 2003 yet only a handful of trans athletes have ever been qualified for an olympic event and the u.s. has only ever sent one transgender woman to the olympics as an alternate who ultimately did not compete under the current system ngbs determine their own inclusion policies which vary from sport to sport and which continue to evolve for example boxes are not subject to the same transgender inclusion policies as equestrians indeed usa boxing recently announced that trans women are eligible to compete in women's events but they are subject to the most stringent requirements of any sport with a documented policy ngbs and the people closest on the ground to the ground on this issue should be left to develop fair and inclusive policies they do not need congress to interfere especially republican majority more interested in fear mongering and demagoguing and actually protecting women this bill would have us replace transgender inclusion policies that are currently determined on a sport by sport basis with a one-size-fits-all ban mega republicans may crow that they have excluded a handful of trans athletes from amateur athletic competitions but they will not have improved the lives of any of the competitors this blanket ban may appeal to the republican mega base but there's no basis in fact performance outcomes or basic human decency in fact the blanket ban on transgender women athletes will harm all women and girls who participate in amateur athletic competitions this bill would likely lead to invasive screening procedures to verify an athlete's gender this is particularly concerning considering the various sexual abuse scandals affecting sports like that involving larry nasser a doctor for the u.s. women's national gymnastics team who pled guilty to offenses relating to the sexual abuse of minors in whose cases has sitted one of the worst sexual abuse scandals in sports history the invasive screening invited by this bill would potentially create opportunities ripe for abusers spare me the republican crocodile tears about protecting women and girls in sports if republicans were truly interested in protecting women and girls or ensuring equal opportunity they would address the real barriers to women's equality in sports rather than targeting trans women and girls to further their political agenda a recent report by the women's sports foundation found actual verifiable barriers to women's and girl's sports equality including a lack of financial resources gender or stereotypes vulnerability to abuse and workplace bias and wage gaps notably missing from the list the inclusion of transgender women this legislation's effects on women's and girls amateur sports alone isn't reason enough to oppose it yet the negative effect the impact of this bill is not limited to a subset of elite athletes and amateur athletic competitions it would also cause additional harm to the small vulnerable community of trans youth athletes that have already been bullied out of scholastic sports by the maga republicans in control of red state legislatures if passed this bill would lead to a trickle down effect throughout an ngb's network of amateur sports associate amateur associations and sponsored competitions because nearly half of all states already categorically ban trans women and girls from scholastic sports trans youth will be denied the last avenue to organize athletic participation available to them along with all the social academic and health benefits organized sports provide for example in chairman jordan's home state of ohio the state legislature recently enacted a ban on transgender women and girls participating in scholastic sports competitions that match their gender identity over the veto of republican governor mike de wine this spiteful measure has the dubious honor of affecting virtually nobody in the state and being appallingly cruel to the few people it does affect in 2023 there were only six count them six transgender girls participating in sports programs for grades through seven through 12 at a 400,000 student athletes in ohio at the time minuscule percentage of the population and we know from reporting that none of those children posed a threat to the chairman and his allies they just wanted to play in a team with their friends we hear additional ugly stories from other republican run states unfortunately my republican colleagues here want to export that needless cruelty to every state in the nation listen credit where it's due i have a lot of disagreements with jerry nadler but what he said there was spot on now to his point about there not being enough trans people in sports to even be a significant issue like i really want to hone in on that for a moment we've talked about this before but there are approximately less than 200 known trans athletes across the entire country both at the k through 12 and collegiate level and those hundreds of athletes if you even want to say hundreds it's about less than 200 maybe 150 altogether but those athletes are not why there's a lack of equity in women sports and if republicans actually wanted to make women sports more fair well they could do that by allocating more resources to those women's teams across the country but they're not doing that because they don't care they only want to demonize trans people but thankfully democrats called that out during this hearing and they also decided to lambast republicans for focusing on this non-issue in the first place so we're going to hear from becca bulin who's going to point out the absurdity of this hearing and also have some really good other comments i have to tell you i've been absolutely stunned by the amount of time and energy that we have spent in this congress talking about trans kids their parents gay americans that somehow my community is the source of all that is wrong in this country and as a former teacher i can tell you it is hard enough to be an adolescent without getting all of these messages from our elected officials that somehow they are not worthy they are not loved and some of the rhetoric that i hear right now in this body is about making them less than human and all they want to do is live their lives attend school have friends participate in sports know that their government is not using every opportunity to fan the flames of fear and hatred now i understand that there are some people in this room and in this this body as a whole that may actually believe the rhetoric may actually believe that you are doing good but i'm telling you it has a devastating effect on children on teens and their parents i don't believe that you think you're doing real damage but i'm telling you you are this is not how we should be spending our time we should be spending our time uplifting americans alleviating suffering letting americans know that we believe in them and we support them and not this this fear mongering this constant fear mongering in this congress people who just want to live their lives and the families who love them that was absolutely incredible and one point that she may just doesn't get brought up enough so these anti trans bills have a detrimental effect on the mental health of trans youth as mary reda explained in a 2021 op-ed for teen vogue anti trans legislation is making trans youth feel less safe even if they have a support system behind them now one example that they share is from a black trans girl named zara for example who is worried about her education and her safety on campus in arkansas because even though her parents support her she doesn't feel safe knowing that the state is targeting her but that is the intended effect of these bills it's not like an unintended consequence they know the effect that these laws and these bills being proposed is going to have on trans youth but that's the point republicans just want to be cruel to trans people and i say this because more and more of them are just admitting that they want to be cruel right so we did a video not that long ago about a family in florida who had to flee the state after they banned gender affirming care for trans youth because they were worried that their teen daughter couldn't get access to gender affirming care any longer and all of the comments were from right where you're saying good i'm glad that they're leaving these are groomers they want to mutilate the genitals of their daughter shame on them just absolutely disgusting i mean can you imagine if there was some democratic party policy that led a bunch of republicans to flee christians for example let's say a bunch of christians were targeted because of a particular law passed by democrats do you think that they would react by laughing or they would take kindly to liberals and leftists laughing at that law of course not i wouldn't support a law like that because as americans i actually do believe in freedom but they don't they want to be cruel right now these things that belin is saying and all of these democrats are saying it's not going to resonate with these republicans at this hearing but i refuse to believe that it won't resonate with normal americans because i don't think that people are that cruel i think that they just don't know about trans issues and as we inform and educate more of them they will come around as they did on the issue of gay rights now i do want to get to one more great response by shila jackson lee so she is going to share her experience as a little girl growing up during jim crow and she explains how devastating it is to denigrate an entire group of people and the impact that that has on individuals within that group this was so powerful let's watch why would we even entertain legislation that is denigrating denying destroying the life of a population of people the trans community exists in this instance i can place myself in the categories of the 20th century and now the 21st when race denigrated me i'm still in that category but when it was severely used to denigrate me i could not vote i could not sit on a bus in the front i could not ride a train as a little girl i had to ride in the colored person's train a kaboot whatever it was as i traveled to visit my grandparents with a brown bag of food because i could not eat where they served food and traveled as a nine-year-old as my parents put me on a train they had to explain to make it fun that i was in this car versus another place of seating my ticket didn't cost any less so i respectfully ask that this legislation be withdrawn from the roster yeah and in the same way that segregationists were on the wrong side of history transphobes are also on the wrong side of history and right now it might not seem like that's the case but it's not going to take very long for society to look back and collectively realize that the way that we treated trans people in this era was very very reprehensible and shameful now even though these transphobes might not want to admit it we all know that if they were alive during the jim crow era they would be siding with the segregationists and that's not necessarily conjecture because the same politicians today that were alive during that era are also transphobic now so i mean if you're against civil rights and you're a bigot i mean you're gonna constantly find yourself on the wrong side of history so in conclusion feigned hysteria over trans people in sports is nothing more than a cynical ploy to villainize trans people and i would encourage every single ally to educate themselves about this topic so we can educate others about this topic and the quicker we do that the quicker we can move on from this issue and just give trans people the civil rights and liberty that they deserve