 When I walk in the stall and sit down like 30 seconds in, I start to hear this lady like ranting and raving about trans people and it and identities and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, she's probably talking about me. Like when I start recording, I am a little confused because I've never had a problem going to the bathroom since cutting my hair short. But for some reason, I knew she was talking about me. Are you a man or a woman? Why does that matter? Well, because you're in a lady's room. And I have gotten called out several times for being in the men's room. And you're going to be called out for whatever you're doing. So what are you identifying as today? I don't think that's a new business. Figure out your identity in your bedroom, okay? And then project it on everybody else and we'll accept it. This is not acceptable. Let's go get security. Yes, let's do that. Um, she's harassing me for being in the bathroom. What's going on? Well, I'm asking her what her identity is. My girlfriend. Yes, but your girlfriend, so it's a problem. It doesn't matter. People asking why I didn't tell her what my identity was. It doesn't matter if I'm trans or not. I literally went in there to go to the bathroom to go pee. So the fact that she followed me into the bathroom and that I was a trans child to harass me and bully me out of the stall is unacceptable. Cause I was literally going to the bathroom, minding my business. You just watched a cis woman explain how she was harassed while going to the bathroom simply because a trans folks suspected that she was trans due to her having short hair. Now that happened a little more than a year ago, but the climate since then has gotten so much more toxic to the point where children are now increasingly the victims of harassment from these adult transvestigators. In fact, it happened last week at a track meet at a school in Kelowna, Canada. And a local affiliate explains two Kelowna moms are speaking out after their nine year old daughter was verbally assaulted at a track and field event on Thursday at Kelowna's Apple Bowl. The mothers who chose not to identify their daughter say she was competing in a shot put event when a grandfather of one of the other participants started yelling at her quote. She went to step up to compete for the fourth grade shot put final and right before she went to throw a grandfather of a student said, Hey, this is supposed to be a girl's event. And why are you letting boys compete? My daughter is cisgender born female uses she her pronouns. She has a pixie haircut said mom Heidi star star says the man then carried on to demand certification to prove that her daughter was born female. He stopped the entire event. He also pointed at another girl who also had short hair. He then piped in and said, Well, if she is not a boy, then she is obviously trans. Star said the man's wife then started calling her a genital mutilator, a groomer and a pedophile. Yeah. Now, thankfully, the superintendent has confirmed that the school is currently taking steps to ban this man permanently from all future school related sporting events. But I mean, the story really tells you a lot about the current climate that we're in. Right? This happened in Canada, but it's the same if not worse in the United States. Bigots are now transvestigating children who they so much as perceive to be trans. And the main reason that this is happening is because that little girl had short hair. I mean, think about how deranged this is. If you have a little girl who gets a pixie cut now a bigot might think that they are trans. This is affecting cis people as well. That's how broad the transphobia is in our society. Now, there's this caricature about trans people that the right has created specifically when it comes to trans people in sports, which probably explains the hypersensitivity of the jackass in this particular story. But I mean, there's this caricature where conservatives believe that there's this insecure man who can't athletically compete with the other men. And so he chooses to identify as a woman specifically so he can dominate them in some sport. And this transphobic trope has been reinforced in pop culture on shows like South Park. But in actuality, this isn't a thing that is happening. Yet the hysteria has led to trans and cis people getting harassed and trans students being excluded from school sports. Now, if this problem was so widespread with trans people just dominating female sports, then you would think that there'd be a plethora of examples of trans middle and high schoolers just crushing the competition, right? But in 2021, when the Associated Press reached out to two dozen conservative politicians who sponsored legislation banning trans girls from school sports in 20 different states, guess what they found? Quote, in almost every case, sponsors cannot cite a single instance of their own state or region where such participation has caused problems. And get this, GOP lawmakers in states like South Carolina and Tennessee even admitted that there might not even be a single transgender athlete in their entire state. But they justified this legislation by calling it proactive because they care about women's sports and little girl's sports. Yeah, very interesting. Now, you would think that they'd have plenty of examples given how much time they spend focusing on this issue, but they couldn't cite a single example. These are the people writing the legislation. Isn't that interesting? Now, there's a reason why they can't cite a single example. And as Newsweek explains, privacy laws make it tough to identify the exact number of transgender athletes competing in public school sports, but researcher and medical physicist Joanna Harper estimates that the number can't exceed 100 nationwide. Now, to be clear, that's at the college level. It's just an estimate, but the number is very small. But what about K-12? Well, Howard Law's Alejandro Carbio, who's been tracking anti-trans legislation now for years, estimates that there is only 50 trans athletes in schools nationwide. Furthermore, Newsweek continues, Jillian Brandstetter, a spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the number of transgender athletes isn't comprehensive, but she's also certain it's a very small portion of the nation's population. Brandstetter told Newsweek that save women's sports in organization advocating for banning transgender athletes from competing in girls' sports identified only five transgender athletes competing on girls' teams in school sports for grades K-12. Now, I want to stress that the organization, the main organization dedicated to advocating that trans girls should be banned from playing school sports can name just five trans athletes competing on girls' teams. It's a big country, and all they could find is just five examples. In other words, there are more Americans who were literally bitten by a shark than there are trans athletes at the K-12 level. In fact, the total number of trans athletes barely surpasses the average number of people struck by lightning every single year which is 28, by the way, and sadly, you are statistically far more likely to die from gun violence in this country than you are to even encounter a trans athlete. But despite this reality, conservative propagandists have successfully elevated the salience of this issue to the point where we've seen a sharp increase in the number of Americans who don't want trans athletes to play with cis athletes. Even Democrats have a 7-point jump according to this Gallup poll since 2021 when again the number of trans athletes is statistically insignificant. But despite the statistical unlikelihood that your child is going to compete with a trans child while everybody has been worked into a frenzy to where now these adults are transvestigating children accusing them of being trans and thus having some sort of unfair biological advantage in the hairstyle that they have as was the case with Kelowna. But I don't want to make it seem as if trans athletes are some mythical creatures because they do exist. And their stories are also very important. So let's talk about one trans athlete in the state of Kentucky. Her name is Fisher Wells. She was a 7th grader when she helped form her school's all-female hockey team. Nobody really was playing but she got her friends together. She created a league for themselves and when she learned that her state lawmakers were proposing a ban on trans athletes in school sports that would affect her, well she decided to speak up and I don't want to share her story. I'm going to let her share her own story because this is important. I'm Fisher Wells and I would like to tell you my experience on the Westport girls field hockey team. Before well after COVID and we were just getting back in the girls field hockey team barely existed. It was just a thing that Westport had that nobody joined because everybody wanted to play like volleyball or something. But then three people signed up. One of them was me and I tried my very hardest to get the minimum amount of people for the team and we got that. And on our first game we got news that I couldn't play and so I didn't play. I sat at home watching television and then I got so many texts from my friends supporting me and then yeah I got these wonderful pictures we tied on that game barely by the way which was fun. But later it was resolved and then I started to find out how disgusting the reason I couldn't play was. I really don't want this bill to pass because that means I can't play and it will be extremely detrimental to my mental health as well because I know that sports is a great way for me to cope with things like it's just a good way for me to cope with things. And it's why I recovered so very quickly from not being able to play because later like a few days later I found out I could play and I was able to play and have fun and like every my coach was crying like she was like oh my gosh Fisher I just it's disgusting that this bill is even suggested it's terrible and I've worked really hard and practiced so many hours. I hope you don't vote on this bill and I hope I can play in eighth grade. Thank you. So I referenced the Associated Press report about how Republican lawmakers couldn't cite any examples of trans athletes causing disruptions at their schools but in theory it's much harder to pass a really cruel policy like these trans athlete bands when you see the face of the person who you're going to be affecting right and because Fisher is the only known trans athlete in her state this law would literally just affect her so she showed up to tell her story and say please let me play with my friends but even though this little girl took the time to explain to Republican lawmakers in Kentucky that the girls hockey team one would not exist without her and two that her friends wanted to play with her do you want to know what those Republicans did guess they voted overwhelmingly in favor of banning her from the team that she helped to create in fact they overrode the governor's veto even though they knew the law would affect one child in seventh grade who was hoping to be able to play in eighth grade now maybe Fisher's story resonated with you maybe it didn't but I know exactly what you're going to say if you are not inclined to support trans people you're going to say Mike we have to prevent these trans girls from playing with cis girls in order to maintain fairness and protect women sports we've heard this a lot but here's the thing the people who are passing these laws they don't actually care about women's sports or girl sports and I say this because if they did then where the fuck is their outrage for things like this I got something to show y'all so for the NCAA March Madness the biggest tournament in college basketball for women this is our weight room let me show y'all the men's weight room now in pictures of our weight room got released versus the men's the NCAA came out with a statement saying that it wasn't money it was space that was a problem let me show y'all something else here's our practice court right and then here's that weight room and then here's all this extra space if you aren't upset about this problem then you're a part of it that was Sedona Prince she is a female athlete who pointed out the inequities between the men's and women's teams at the University of Oregon and what she's saying is that this is the problem and if you care about women's sports you should care about this but what do conservatives do they plug their ears and they point to trans athletes as the problem not what actual female athletes are saying are the problems affecting their sports but as the human rights campaign puts it the real threat to women's sports isn't underfunding and lack of resources and this is because women's sports receives far less funding than men's sports on average with school spending an estimated 71 cents on women's sports for every dollar they spend on men's sports and when you look at sports funding across the board specifically when it comes to travel equipment and recruitment the disparities here are clear so Kentucky Republicans who banned Fisher Wells from her state's hockey team under the pretense of protecting women's sports I mean why haven't they addressed the $7,600 plus disparity in funding between men's sports and women's sports other states that we briefly mentioned here like Tennessee and South Carolina are perfectly fine presumably with $3,000 and $2,000 differences in funding respectively between men and women's sports but yet they called their sponsoring of anti-trans sports bands them just being proactive what about being proactive when it comes to the actual problems plaguing women's sports and funding is obvious but really it goes much deeper than funding it also comes down to how female athletes are treated compared to men Ali Kirschner who is a women's coach for stand for detail the differences between male and female athletes at the 2021 March Madness tournament and this is what she spoke about not only were there notable differences in facilities but also in food and merchandise as well in other photos shared by players there was a visible difference in the caliber and quantity of what was received by the women's teams from the event organizers men received enormous swag bags and high quality food while the women's teams only received a few merchandise items and lesser quality food but I mean the disparities in funding and treatment of female athletes these have been long documented but yet Republicans they got everyone to believe that it's the trans athletes they're the ones who are the real danger to women's sports and this should be obvious but I'm gonna say it anyway these conservatives don't care about women's sports at all period they concern role about fairness in women's sports as a pretense to push transphobia and that's why they do it that's why they talk about this but unfortunately it's working even well-intentioned people who should know better are getting duped by the rights propagandistic trans panic that they've been pushing with regard to this issue for example someone I respect like Ryan Grimm responded to the Gallup poll we talked about earlier which found that a majority of Americans are opposed to trans and cis athletes playing together and he recommended an all gender category as a solution but Emma Viglin who also does sports commentary responded saying that this is a bad idea because the societal interest of including trans people in our social institutions not in separate but equal categories trumps arbitrary standards of competition in sports we're talking incredibly small numbers here your solution others and isolates trans people and she's absolutely correct about that now Ryan Grimm followed up by asking what's meant by separate but equal here there shouldn't be separate categories or leagues Emma responded saying I mean that trans girls and women are girls and women so they should be able to participate in female leagues designating this miniscule number of trans girls and women as a separate category based on dubious claims of unfairness opens the door to further discrimination and alienation but Ryan pushed back adding the claims are not inherently dubious male bodies have athletic advantages on average that's why the leagues are separate I actually think the Biden title nine proposal is pretty good it allows trans girls and women to play in female leagues unless there's some articulable risk slash issue finally Emma responded saying competition is all about advantages and disadvantages should Yao Ming have been banned from the NBA for hide advantage gender affirming care hormones for trans kids would smooth out any theoretical advantage in the meantime trans people should be able to pursue their dreams now David dole chimed in asking are you familiar with Michael Phelps should there be a separate league for people with these sorts of advantages should there be a separate NBA for players over six three and the paragraphs that David shares here explains how Phelps has a disproportionately vast wingspan he's also double jointed in his ankles which gives his kicks more range which obviously is a benefit when swimming and he's even less prone to fatigue since his body produces half the lactic acid of typical athletes and if you claim to care about fairness in sports then the points that Emma Viclin and David all are making are absolutely crucial I mean should Michael Phelps his opponents have called for him to be banned because he has undeniable biological advantages should Mugsy Bogues who is five three been able to petition the NBA to sideline all of his opponents who are more than a foot taller than him I mean if we care about fairness in sports then why are these questions thought to be so unreasonable but yet we make an exception when it comes to unfairness when it comes to gender gender is where we draw the line at fairness and unfairness in sports really that's the hill that we're choosing to die on because reasons well we know what those reasons are the reasons are transphobia the reasons are bigotry and propaganda is a very powerful tool and again conservatives have been able to convince a majority of Americans that trans people they're the real danger to women's sports they've even convinced people who should know better like Ryan Grimm when he's falling for the propaganda for this non-issue that really goes to show you how repetition and just being loud pays off in politics but again trans people in sports is not an issue but what is an issue is the treatment of trans people in this country in other countries trans people exist and they've always existed and they're going to continue to exist but their existence is not up for debate but what is up for debate is how society treats trans people you have a large portion of people that wants to treat them poorly as second class citizens and it's really telling that the bigots who advocate for that position they have to resort to lies and hyperbole to sell discrimination to the masses which really tells you a lot about which side of history they're on don't you think if they were so concerned about their position they wouldn't have to lie? I mean how many times have we heard that trans children are being mutilated when that's just simply not happening gender-forming care for trans youth often times at the very young ages involves social transition puberty blockers when they reach the age where they're about to go through puberty they have to lie that if the spell of propaganda wore off then most people probably wouldn't have an issue with trans people because this is a very small portion of the population and them being free to live their lives and pursue their dreams doesn't actually affect them so these conservatives have to make up reasons to hate trans people but it's all based on bullshit trans rights are human rights it is necessary to push trans on the kids pride