We're actually going to start with our
main story this week and it concerns an
absolute fixation of the rights. Because
even as the market crashed in the wake
of Trump's tariffs, Fox News spent a lot
of time on this. A women's fencer is
defending her decision to take a knee to
protest her trans opponent despite
getting disqualified for her forfeit. A
female fencer who's devoted years of her
life to the sport was just disqualified.
This is the civil rights issue of the
hour, women's sports. Here's a story
that everybody's going to be interested
in. A female fencer stands up for
fairness in women's sports. Wait, that's
the story that everyone is going to be
interested in. Are you sure about that?
The story about fencing and not the one
that's caused the stock ticket in the
corner of your screen to go bright red
like an inflamed hemorrhoid. Also, I
challenge those anchors to tell me one
thing about fencing besides Lindsay
Lohan did it against herself in the
parent trap. I don't think you can do
it. The issue of trans athletes has
become very important to conservatives
in general and Donald Trump in
particular. He talked about it at length
in his address to Congress and signed an
order titled Keeping Men Out of Women's
Sports, which promised to rescend all
funds from educational programs that
allowed trans women and girls to
compete. And at the signing ceremony, he
adlibd the creepiest compliment
possible. We're defending the rights and
safety and pride of the American people,
including our great great great female
athletes. What athletes you are too,
tell
you. And you know, I'm not allowed to
say this politically. It could end my
career. They're really beautiful people.
These are beautiful people. But but you
know, like everything else, it's a
little bit different today. You're not
allowed to say that because if you call
a woman or a girl beautiful, that's the
end of your career. But let's take a
chance on it, Mike. Let's take a chance.
Okay. To be completely fair to Trump, I
will say his understanding of women's
issues is comparable to his
understanding of foreign policy,
domestic policy, trade, the economy, the
concept of consent, human empathy, and
all but one of his children's names.
Trump leads every conversation with a
psychosexual energy that makes the White
Lotus look like the Teletubbies. Oh, I'm
sorry. Did the incest story line bother
you? Donald Trump joked about dating his
own daughter on the View. He said that
on a morning show. At least
White Lotus has the DC to air in the
evenings right here on the Incest
Network. Trump's order has already
prompted the NCAA to institute a ban on
trans athletes participating in women's
sports. But he is not done. He's also
trying to pull $175 million in funding
from UPEN for allowing one trans athlete
to compete three years ago. And when
Maine indicated it would resist his ban,
he threatened to cut off all its federal
funding despite the whole state
apparently having just two trans girls
total competing in girls sports. Two.
And I know you might be thinking, "Okay,
but in Maine, two kids is like half the
kids, right?" But it's actually not.
They've got more. This issue is an
obsession for Republicans. Last year,
they spent over $116 million just on TV
ads featuring trans athletes. And the
relentless focus on this over the years
has had a meaningful impact with one
poll showing more than six in 10 adults
say trans girls and women should not be
allowed to compete in girls and women's
sports including high school and youth
levels. 25 states have now imposed bans
on them competing in schools. Even Gavin
Newsome, pictured here as the villain in
a Ryan Murphy production, recently said
he thought trans athletes being allowed
to participate in women's sports is
deeply unfair without really elaborating
on what he meant by that. And for trans
kids impacted by these bands who just
want to play sports with their friends,
it's been hard. As this 15-year-old girl
in New Hampshire explains, it's been
stressful and difficult.
Um, it's been annoying. I felt very
annoyed and upset that this has been
happening and that it's been happening
towards a vulnerable community like the
trans community. Yeah. And honestly,
annoying is an understatement there.
Annoying is what you say when your
friend is late or your Wi-Fi is spotty
or when you're a chicken minding your
own business and suddenly you're on the
news. You're hanging out eating dirty
snow with seven or eight close friends
and then boom, all of a sudden the AP is
doing a close-up of your feet. That is
annoying. But I know people have strong
opinions on this subject. In our
post-election show, I said there are
vanishingly few trans girls competing in
high school sports anywhere. And even if
there were more, trans kids, like all
kids, vary in athletic ability, and
there is no evidence that they pose any
threat to safety or fairness. After that
show aired, JK Rowling herself issued
the single longest tweet I've ever seen
in my life, in which she claimed, among
other things, that I'm happy to watch
females suffer injury, uh, humiliation,
and the loss of sporting opportunities
to bolster an elitist postmodern
ideology. And honestly, it feels a bit
weird to catch that much heat from the
creator of Harry Potter, especially when
I clearly look like what would have
happened to him if they just left him in
that cupboard for the rest of his
life. Now, I stand by everything I said
in that episode, but I will concede that
this subject is more complicated than
people should just use the bathroom that
corresponds with their gender identity.
And since trans participation in sports
seems for some reason to be at the
center of our politics right now, it
felt like tonight might be a good time
to talk about it at real length. And in
doing so, we're going to try and explain
a few things. What the facts could
actually tell us about trans athletes
regarding competition and safety, where
much of this seems to be coming from
because it didn't crop up out of
nowhere, and where it looks like things
might be going. And let's start by
acknowledging many people do have good
faith questions about this, even if
they're asking them a little clumsily.
Here here's an example of one of those
questions about fairness coming from a
less than ideal source. Let's say
Serena's in her
prime and and and a tr you know and and
who knows we'll make up the person right
so you know some let's not make up the
person let's say that that Rafa Nadal
you know has some issue you know wants
to transition and I just and wins the
Wimbledon final or you know somebody
wins the 100 meter dash at the Olympic I
just I think that's a I think that's a
net negative now
clearly when it comes to questions of
right wrong in sports. Lance Armstrong
might be the last person you call just
after the 1990 Chicago White Socks and
the ear chunk that Mike Tyson bit off.
But to be fair, I can see how at the
most elite level of sports, an
instantaneous switch like that would
confer an advantage. It hasn't happened.
And for what it's worth, in tennis, the
WTA already has guidelines for
transincclusion, requiring athletes
maintain strict hormone levels for at
least two years before competing with
processes for dispute resolutions if
necessary. So, they're already thinking
about this and I presume will continue
to do that. The thing is hypotheticals
like that circulate constantly and often
center around someone transitioning
solely to gain a competitive advantage.
But as this trans researcher points out,
that is an absurd proposition. Trans
women don't transition for sports. Um,
no, no one has ever said, "Oh, yeah. I
think I'd like to be a woman so I can do
well in women's sports. When you go
through a gender transition, um you lose
so many things in life. My own mother
said she never wanted to speak to me
again. Um you know, I lost friends,
family, got divorced. Um you'd go
through all of that just to win a medal
in sports. No. Um trans people
transition because it's the only way
that we can live happily, right? No one
says, "I'm going to transition just for
the sake of sports." The same way no one
says, "Could you please send me more
messages about two factor
authentication or when I walk down the
aisle, I'd like a solo violin cover of a
bar with a bar by Kids Rock." That is
just a madeup person. Still, let's
engage with the underlying premise of
that question from the world's most
famous sports cheater that those
assigned male at birth are automatically
going to have certain immutable physical
advantages. that gets raised constantly,
which is why we're going to spend most
of our time talking about trans women
and girls, even though in these five
states, these bands impact trans boys in
schools, too. It is obviously true that
on average, cisgender men and
postpubescent boys have some specific
athletic performance advantages, though
the relative size of that advantage also
depends on the sport and the event. in
swimming. For instance, male athletic
performance advantage is roughly 13% in
the 50 m freestyle, but less than 6% in
the 1500 meter free, which is still
clearly significant. But in general,
there's a lot of overlap in the average
performance ranges of men and women.
Basically, it is not the case that any
man is going to be stronger or more
athletic than every woman, which is
sometimes what gets implied here,
including by Donald Trump, who brought
Riley Gaines, the former college swimmer
who's become one of the most prominent
voices on this issue, on stage to say
this. Just to show you how ridiculous it
is. Look at me. I'm much bigger and much
stronger than her. There's no way she
could beat me in swimming. Do we all
agree? Huh?
Thank you. Thank you. I don't agree, but
I would like to see it. I would like to
see the 78-year-old president try to
swim in water against a former D1
swimmer. I'd like to bear witness to
that event and whatever happens after it
as a result of it occurring. But
crucially, when it comes to trans
athletes who've medically transitioned,
studies of cis athletes are not
necessarily relevant. A lot of medical
gender- affirming treatments like
hormone therapy have a meaningful impact
on body and hormone composition. So the
question then becomes what do those
impacts mean for athletic performance?
We spoke to scientists on all sides of
this issue and the one thing they
actually agree on is that in part
because the number of trans athletes is
so small. The body of research
specifically about them is extremely
limited. There are a bunch of studies
comparing specific anatomical features
like muscle mass in women who
transition, but which don't directly
speak to their impact on athletic
performance, but we were only able to
find 12 studies that actually tested
trans adult women's physical fitness in
a lab or other performance scenario.
Eight have a sample size of less than 20
and two are of a single athlete. And
look, I don't have any scientific
experience, even though I look like a
cross between a scientist and the
profoundly sick mice he's studying. But
you probably shouldn't draw broad
conclusions off a sample size of one.
Those 12 studies generally find that
medically transitioning does impact
trans women's performance, but disagree
on how or by how much. That research you
saw earlier actually published the only
longitudinal study to date of multiple
athletes studying the impact of
transitioning on eight long-distance
runners. She found after at least a year
on hormone therapy, their race times
turned out to be more athletically
similar to those of cisgender women than
cisgender men. But she herself will tell
you the study was limited and his
conclusions were nuanced. Here she is
explaining what we do and don't know at
this point. It is undoubtedly true that
um trans women will maintain um
advantages in some sports probably not
so much in endurance sports but in in
size and strength sports. Trans women
will also have some physiological
disadvantages. Our larger frames are now
being powered by reduced muscle mass and
reduced aerobic capacity. And that can
lead to disadvantages in terms like
quickness, recovery, endurance, things
that maybe aren't quite as obvious as
being bigger and stronger, right? Bigger
and stronger bodies are not
automatically advantaged in every
scenario. I mean, put the Rock in a
Purebar class and see what happens. I
mean, we know what would happen. He'd
take a video of himself, caption it,
"Mad respect to these mammas. Everyone
go see Moana, too." and tried to use it
to sell his tequila before eating 13,000
pancakes and drinking a cow. We know
what would
happen. But the degree of difference
here matters because we expect a certain
amount of difference in athletics.
Taller basketball players are expected
to compete against shorter ones, faster
soccer players, compete against slower
ones. Michael Phelps was allowed to
compete with other swimmers despite
being part dolphin. And crucially, none
of the studies I've mentioned so far
bear much relevance to what these new
laws target, which is youth sports,
usually of all ages. And the research
there is even more scant. We have no
research about how being trans or
undergoing gender- affirming treatment
impacts athletic performance in teens.
And when it comes to kids before the
onset of puberty, I could talk about the
study showing the subtle performance
differences between boys and girls, but
I'd argue when you're talking about
seven-year-olds as a practical matter,
that's a point where lots of school
sports are co-ed anyway. And a key
difference between competitors on a
field can come down to whether a kid was
born in October or April. And at this
point, you might be saying, "Well, I
don't need to wait for scientific
research. This is all common sense, and
I know what I've seen online." But a lot
of what you've seen may not be quite
what you think it is. Both when it comes
to trans athletes impact on competition
or safety. And let's start with
competition because there's a big number
that you tend to hear a lot. Listen to
this. A shocking report from the United
Nations states over 600 female athletes
have lost close to 900 medals to
transgender opponents. Female athletes
have lost nearly 900 medals to
transgender athletes. You had the United
Nations study come out not long ago
about 900 medals for females that ended
up going to transgender athletes. Yeah,
900 medals. That is a go-to statistic.
It was even cited on the floor of the
Senate during their debate over a
transports ban and featured prominently
in JK Rowling's latest tome. But we got
curious about that number. So we looked
at that report and it turns out first it
wasn't produced by the UN. It was
submitted to it by a special rapotur who
herself said its findings do not
necessarily represent those of the UN.
And if you go online to the footnote
that it cites and click on it, you get
sent to this website, she won, where
anyone could submit an instance of a
siswoman losing to a trans woman
anywhere in the world in any
competition, big or small. The author of
that report insisted to us, I did not
rely only on this source. But I will say
the numbers she cites do match what was
on the site back then. And they included
competitions all the way back to 2001
and down to the level of a fun run in
Topeka, Kansas and an Irish dance
competition as well as activities where
gender confers no advantage like poker.
Also over a 100 entries on the list are
in the field of disc golf which if
you're unfamiliar involves frisbees
being thrown into this thing, some kind
of guantanamo for
birds. And as if that weren't enough,
the way they got to that 900 number has
to do with how they counted the wins.
Because on the list, one transwoman
finishing first counts as three denied
medals. The logic being the second place
finisher should have come first, the
third place finisher should have come
second, and the fourth place finisher
should have come third. And look, some
will argue it doesn't matter how minor
the competition, the women on that list
were all unfairly deprived of their
rightful place. But even some of those
women don't feel that way. This one, a
disc golfer, has publicly stated she's
happy to see trans people in disc golf.
And an amateur cyclist named Kristen
Charas is actually on the list twice
because for some reason a single race
she lost is on there under two different
spellings of her name. She came in third
behind two trans women, but she has made
it clear they are her friends and she
has no problem competing with them. I
think that it would be ridiculous to say
that my life is being ruined by getting
third in this. It would be ridiculous to
sacrifice other people getting to have
fun in a sport that they love on the
weekends so that I could say I was the
state champion. Yeah, you could tell
she's not upset because a she's giggling
through that interview and b that is a
very happylooking photo. I have, and
this is true, never once smiled that
freely in my life. Look how joyful they
are. That looks like an ad for cycling
or for having friends or honestly just
for mud.
So for all the talk of how trans women
are so dominant they'll spell the end of
women's sports. The number people keep
citing to prove that has I would argue a
pretty big thumb on the scale. And even
the famous individual cases are
sometimes missing a lot of context. You
may have seen this photo of two trans
high school runners in Connecticut
coming first and second at a state track
meet. They were the subject of a lawsuit
claiming, among other things, their
participation wasn't just unfair, it
threatened to deprive their competitors
of scholarships. But you should know,
one of the plaintiffs actually beat one
of those girls twice just 2 days after
the suit was filed. Also, most of the
plaintiffs ended up getting scholarships
while these two did not. But the most
famous example is probably Leah Thomas.
As you probably know, she's a swimmer
who initially competed on the University
of Pennsylvania men's team, including
one year while undergoing hormone
therapy as part of her medical
transition as per the NCAA's rules at
the time. She made national headlines
after she won the NCAA championship in
the women's 500 freestyle. She got a
good time in that race, her best of the
season, although it was also a full 9
seconds behind the record set by Katy
Leiddki. It's also the only race she won
at that meet. She came in eighth in the
100 freestyle and in what's weirdly her
most consequential race, she tied for
fifth in the 200 free with Riley Gaines
who catapulted to conservative stardom
off the back of that race and I will let
Riley herself tell you the story of how
Leah Thomas and the NCAA wronged her. I
look up at the board before I even
looked at my name. I looked at Thomas's
name and I saw the number five and I
look beside my name and there's a five.
The NCAA official looks at Thomas and
myself and says, "Great job, but you
guys tied and we only have one trophy,
so we're going to give this trophy to
Leah."
Thomas held the trophy for fifth place.
Gains held the one for sixth.
They told me when pictures were being
taken, Thomas had to have the trophy,
which just reduced it down to a photo
op. I felt so belittled. I felt so
betrayed.
Okay, so a few things there. First,
that's a story about how Leah Thomas
prevented Riley Gains from getting fifth
place instead of fifth
place. Second, those trophies look
absolutely identical. Third, yes, it was
a photo op in the sense that everybody
arranged themselves for the purposes of
taking a photo. And while we're talking
about photo ops, I don't know, man. You
were on the stage at CPAC so an
objectively drownable man could announce
that he'd beat you in a race. That's
about as photo opy as it's ever going to
get. So, just so we are clear, Leah
Thomas didn't take anything from Riley
Gaines. In fact, you could argue she
gave a lot to her as Gaines later
decided to forego dental school in order
to be an activist and speaker. She she
now has her own advocacy center and has
personally lobbied multiple state
legislatores for bands all to address
the threat post to women's sports by a
woman who swam exactly as fast as she
did to the literal hundth of a second.
So from the 900 medals to the
scholarships these girls did not get to
the most famous fifth place finisher in
human history, the competition argument
is already a lot weaker than it tends to
get presented. So what about safety?
Well, first, in plenty of sports like
track and swimming, there is no safety
threat because they're not contact
sports. But in others, like basketball
and volleyball, there clearly is some
amount of contact either with another
body or with a ball. But even there, the
big anecdotes that get thrown around
tend to be more complicated. The most
famous example concerns Payton McNab, a
three sport high school athlete who was
hit in the face by a spike during a
volleyball match. She suffered injuries,
including a concussion, and started
speaking out against the policies that
allowed the trans player who spiked the
ball to play. The video of her getting
hit often makes the rounds in these
debates, and she told her story to the
North Carolina State Legislature before
they implemented their ban. She also
attended Trump's address to Congress and
appeared in a video about the incident
produced by an activist group for which
she and Riley Gaines are now
ambassadors. A couple years ago, I was
severely injured in a high school
volleyball game by a male on the
opposing team, leaving me with permanent
injuries that the doctors don't know if
I'll ever be able to recover from
because of my career ending injury. Um,
I was no longer to per able to perform
the way I had the in the past.
Progressive gender ideology being pushed
so harshly is exactly the root of why
this was allowed to happen to me. If it
wasn't pushed so harshly, this could
have been 100% avoided. Okay, I'll say
this. Unlike holding up a trophy with a
six on it for 40 seconds, a concussion
is genuinely traumatic. Though, for what
it's worth, she did go on to play
softball in the spring and did pretty
well, judging by her school posting this
image about her making the allconerence
team and a local paper pointing out she
helped her team to a 5-0 start. And I'm
not saying she wasn't injured or that it
didn't have some impact on her
performance, but a lot of the groups
heavily pushing this story seemed to be
overselling it, including choosing to
title that video Killshot, how Pate
McNab turned tragedy into triumph.
Because Killshot is not a good title for
a teenage girl who is very much alive
and talking to a camera. Killshot is
either a movie where Kano Reeves and
Anna Armas, opposing spies and
devastating marksmen fall in love, or a
hunting reality show that gets canceled
after its host Donald Trump Jr. is
mowled by a moose in
heat. And and that is not the only
volleyball related story that's been
oversold. Last year, there was a
controversy over a trans player for San
Jose State University. Other teams
forfeited games rather than compete with
her, and one of her own teammates joined
a lawsuit to stop her from playing. But
watch as this story mentions something
at the end that puts a bit of an
asterisk on that teammate's argument.
When asked about how and why she felt
unsafe, Sleser said, "The height that
the person can jump is so much higher
and honestly higher for a man. It's
insane. And then the strength behind the
ball when they're swinging is also just
so much more powerful." But her
transgender teammate stats don't appear
to give the Spartans a dramatic upper
hand. The San Jose State women's
volleyball team is ranked 119th
nationally.
Wow, you must be in a very competitive
league since it sounds like you've got
one of the Avengers on your team. And
yet somehow you're still only ranked
119th.
That lawsuit initially claimed that the
player spikes were estimated to be
traveling upwards of 80 mph. A speed, by
the way, that would make her as powerful
as some of the hardest hitting men's
volleyball players in history. But when
ESPN used camera calibration software to
analyze video of five of her spikes,
including ones that went viral for being
dangerous, they average around 50 mph,
which is fast, but it's also a full
speed limit in the suburb slower than
what the lawsuit initially claimed. And
look, they've since amended that
lawsuit, deleting the 80 mph line,
telling us that it was a mistake and
that they meant to say 60 instead.
Though notably, they only did that after
ESPN published its report. The point is,
her spikes were nowhere near record
setting, which may be why she didn't
rank in the top 150 in hitting
percentage in the NCAA. And look, some
trans kids are going to injure their
opponents the same way any kid will. And
concussions are horrible. Although
they're also not that uncommon in youth
sports, given between one to two million
of them happen every year. Even in the
wake of Pton McNab's injury, two coaches
whose team had played against the trans
player for the previous four years,
spoke up at a school board meeting to
say they were happy to keep doing so.
One apparently told the meeting, "Every
time a student plays, there's an
inherent risk of injury and that she'd
seen sis girls hit the ball harder than
the one in the video." And the other
coach asked, "If they're slated to play
a team with a player who is 100% girl
and she hits the ball harder than the
player in question, should that game be
forfeited?" And that's the thing. The
standard can't be no trans kid ever
injures someone because that's an
impossible standard. And yes, if trans
kids were injuring sis kids at much
higher rates, then we could have safety
concerns to
address. But there's no evidence that's
the case. And at this point it is worth
asking what is really behind all this
vitro because again I do believe that
some speaking against trans
participation are just talking about
women's sports. And the truth is at the
elite levels of competition this isn't a
cut and dry issue. But in many other
cases the opposition comes from a much
more toxic place. It is not just about
denying trans women the right to play.
It's about denying them the right to
exist. Mike Johnson basically said as
much after the House passed its ban on
trans athletes when he said this. We
know from scripture and from nature that
men are men and women are women and men
cannot become women. That's right, Mike.
As scripture tells us, men are men and
women are women and God is his own son.
And some mothers are virgins and some
mothers-in-law are pillars of salt and
some daughters are sex partners and
colorful coats are dream tellers and
brothers and murderers. And also
brothers are backup. Husbands for wives
and babies can be for splitting in half
and water is wine and also with you.
Sorry and with your
spirit. Now the anti-inclusion camp
objects to being called hateful, bigoted
or intolerant, usually right before or
after saying something most would
consider qualifies. Here is Riley Gaines
doing just that. I don't want to be
considered a bigot or a transphobe or
all of those labels. There's no hate in
my heart. But me myself personally, I
don't actually think this person is a
woman. I don't actually think this
person is a female. Therefore, when I
say she, I feel like I'm going against
my moral compass. Yeah. But it turns out
there is a lot of distance between I
don't want to be considered a transphobe
and I don't want to be a trans phobe.
even greater than the distance between
you and first place in that race you
make such a big deal
about. The thing
is his current uproar is rooted in a
very intentional political strategy by
the right to find a new issue after
losing the war over samesex marriage.
Conservatives embrace of this issue came
after the failure of so-called bathroom
bills around the country which were
widely criticized. The president of the
American Principles Project, a socially
conservative advocacy group, has openly
said, "We pivoted to the sports issue
and it's been wildly successful." He
even explained the reason for that,
arguing what it did was it got opponents
of the LGBT movement comfortable with
talking about transgender issues. And
he's kind of right about that, cuz it
does seem like right now you can
basically say anything you want about
trans people as long as you tag on in
sports after it. I don't think trans
women should be allowed in sports. I
don't think trans women are women in
sports. But it is noticeable just how
fast the in sports part can drop off
once people feel that permission has
been granted to the point that some
leading voices in this movement are now
circling back to bathroom bans. An issue
that a decade ago people felt was a
bridge too far. Last year, for instance,
Pton McNab tweeted a video of her
confronting a trans woman with the
caption, "A man using the girl's
bathroom at Western Carolina University.
Unreal." Which is really nasty. And for
the record, ambushing strangers just
minding their own business is not what
girls bathrooms are for. Girls bathrooms
are for gassing each other up, making
best friends in 30 seconds,
complimenting tops, tucking in tags, and
zipping up dresses. While one girl says,
"OMG, that lipstick looks so good on
you." The other says, "30% off at
Sephora right now." And the first girl
says, "Like now? Now?" And she responds,
"Yeah, I went yesterday." She says, "Oh,
you're my hero. I've been looking for a
nude that goes my blotchy skin tone."
And the other says, "Girl, stop it. I
would kill for those freckles. You know,
people are buying them now." And the
first one's like, "You're right. We got
to be loving ourselves." And the other
one is like, "We absolutely do. That is
what girls bathrooms are for." I am told
I have no idea.
put your phone away and build
some community,
Payton. And the reason this has been an
easier cell for the right is that it's
possible to frame all of this as being
about protecting women and girls.
Although, if that is truly the aim,
there is reason for them to feel a lot
less safe thanks to these bills. As in
practice, they can encourage adults to
police the bodies of literal children.
That has happened. In Florida, a trans
kid was kicked off a team after an
investigation which resulted in a report
about her that was more than 500 pages
long and included investigators asking
three girls on her volleyball team if
they'd ever seen her undressed. And in
Utah, the parents of a girl who was not
trans were horrified when a local member
of the state board of education felt
empowered to do this. Utah State Board
of Education member Natalie Klene posted
this picture with the caption girls
basketball dot dot dot. The couple
describes their daughter, whose image
KSL is blurring, as a tomboy. She cut
her hair short because that's how she
feels comfortable. She wears clothes
that are a little baggy. She goes to the
gym all the time, so she's got muscles.
They said their family is rallying
around their daughter. They have a
message to other families experiencing
bullying. And I want all the kids to
know that it's okay to just be who they
are. That is awful. And I hope it goes
without saying, but random adults should
not be publicly interrogating the gender
of children on Facebook. People really
shouldn't be on Facebook at all unless
they're a locked in a bidding war for a
barely used set of end tables or b
trying to figure out if a family friend
died or if they're just intimately
posting about praying. Those are the
only two acceptable uses of Facebook
left. But obviously the bulk of the
damage here is being done to trans kids.
Cuz one thing we know for sure is that
for all kids, the benefits
physiological, social, and emotional of
participating in school sports, teams,
and athletics are wide ranging. And to
hear trans kids themselves tell it,
participation can be especially
important to their feeling of community
and sense of self. I love track because
I feel like I'm a part of a second
family. It's like another bond that you
experience. This has helped me so much.
Being able to be part of a sport and
part of a team is such an incredible
amazing experience for me. Without
football, uh, I don't quite know if I
would still be here because it it's
given me a sense of belonging. Uh, it's
take it's taken away the spotlight on
the fact that I am transgender and it's
just allowed me to be a boy and it's
allowed me to be a kid. That is a really
moving thing to hear. And if you're
experiencing a weird sensation after
that clip that you can't quite place,
it's because it was nice. It was happy
kids talking about how they're able to
be themselves. And you don't usually get
nice things on this show, which at this
point is honestly mainly dense
statistics and facts. and occasional
Pikachu
porn. Being
trans can mean seeing your body as a
barrier to living life as your authentic
self, especially when you're young and
especially in social situations. And
it's not even necessarily about being
good at sports. Because for all the
focus on a handful of high performing
athletes, it is helpful to remember lots
of trans kids, like any kids, are
terrible at sports.
That teenager you just saw, Ember, was a
backup catcher who said, "I'm mediocre
at best." And her mom goes even further.
How would you describe Ember's um
athletic prowess?
There really isn't much. How about any
home runs?
She's never hit a home run in her life.
Wow. That is a supportive mom making it
very clear that she will protect trans
kids, but only to a
point. And I love the honesty there.
Athletic proess, that would be a
negative. Home runs, hard no. I'm going
to answer your question with a direct
accurate hit. Something my daughter
could frankly only dream of.
So yeah, Ember is not great at softball,
but she wanted to play anyway, and she
met all of her state's requirements to
do so, including undergoing at least a
year of hormone therapy. But as soon as
she was approved, the state started
moving to implement a ban. And when she
testified against it, she dropped in a
little extra piece of info. Others have
said that I should just play baseball
with the boys. In many ways, this would
be easier. I wouldn't have to go through
the time-consuming and embarrassing
process of of submitting in intimate
medical details to the state. Also, the
boys at my school have two beautiful
fields to play on. Most years, our
softball team has to cancel half of our
games because our old field has no
drainage. But the fact is that for me,
playing on a boy's team would be a lie.
Yeah, that makes sense. And you know, it
says something that people seem more
concerned about a trans girl on the
field than they do about the field
itself turning into a swimming pool half
the time. And I realize I'm taking a
risk by saying the word swimming pool
out loud. Because if you say that phrase
three times, Riley Gain shows up, ties
for fifth, and then dead names everyone
in a 50 mile radius. Unfortunately
though, Ohio bans trans athletes anyway.
And that insistence on aggressively
legislating around a handful of trans
kids, one neglecting much bigger
systemic issues around youth sports just
isn't a one-off. Take Kentucky. Three
years ago, they passed one of these
bans, even though at the time there was
just one known trans athlete, a
12-year-old competing in schools there.
The governor, to his credit, vetoed it.
But the legislators would not let it
rest because on the second to last day
of the session, they voted to override
his veto with one member doing so with
real regional theater energy. Veto to
Senate Bill 83. Gentleman from
McCracken. Mr. Speaker, I move for final
passage of Senate Bill 83, the veto of
the governor notwithstanding.
Yeah, they felt so strongly about
protecting young female athletes.
darkest timeline Drew Kerry here was
willing to step in, but the urgency on
display there notably didn't seem to
apply to other issues concerning you
youth athlete safety because last year
an investigation revealed a
long-standing pattern of sexual abuse in
youth sports in Kentucky. It pointed out
a bill that might have helped prevent
that was this one, which would have made
it harder for school personnel,
including coaches who've been accused of
misconduct, to move from district to
district. It's been called the most
comprehensive bill to address the issue.
Unfortunately, it stalled out in the
legislature for an infuriating reason
because it made it through both chambers
and only needed a procedural vote to be
sent to the governor to sign. But it
just sat there and on the last day of
the session, it still hadn't passed. And
then this happened. The members are
hungry and we quite possibly have
considered the last bill of the session.
However, I'm not
100% that that is the case. So, out of
an abundance of caution, we're going to
recess into the call of the chair. Yeah,
they off to dinner and guess
what? They never came back to vote. So,
it seems this is how the Kentucky State
House works. When there is one kid who
wants to play field hockey, it's Pearl
Harbor. But when there's a long-standing
pattern of sexual abuse, it's sorry, we
got a 6 p.m. reservation at the
Cheesecake
Factory. And for those who've played
girls sports, this sudden interest from
lawmakers is a little hard to take.
Given for so long, it's meant having to
put up with constant slights and
indignities. from worse playing fields
to smaller locker rooms to creepy
coaches no one will do anything about to
always having to play your games early
while the 8:00 p.m. boys game gets
treated like the main event. I cannot
tell you how many times multiple writers
who worked on this story and who played
women's sports brought that last point
up. And now we seem to be hellbent on
adding to all that the fear that if
girls get too short a haircut or go to
the gym too much a stranger on Facebook
is going to start just asking questions.
And look, this is the part of the show
where I usually talk about what to do,
but a lot of this is currently out of
our hands. When it comes to state level
bans, thankfully, court orders are
blocking enforcement of them in all of
these states. And courts are also going
to have to weigh in on Trump's executive
order, which some states have admirably
resisted, none more memorably than
Maine, whose governor had this standoff
with Trump. I understand Maine. Is Maine
here? The governor of Maine
down here. Are you uh not going to
comply with it? I'm complying with state
and federal laws. Well, I'm We are the
federal law. Well, you better do it. You
better do it because you're not going to
get any federal funding at all if you
don't. You better comply because
otherwise you're not getting any any
federal funding.
Yeah. Yes. You get it, mate. You get it.
And you know
what? I take back everything mean that I
have ever said about you, mate.
like that you're lobster stuffed
lighthouse perverts that the rest of the
Northeast loves to forget. I still
broadly think that to be true, but I'm
not going to be saying it out loud
anymore because that is honestly
heartening to me. As is the fact that
when Republicans tried to pass a
nationwide ban on trans participation in
sports, it failed in the Senate after
every single Democrat voted against it.
And it's been inspiring to see some of
these trans kids teammates coming out
hard against the way their friends are
being treated. For instance, in Florida,
where that transirl was kicked off her
team, thanks to again an investigation
that was more than 500 pages long, Keats
in her school staged a walk out in
protest. And one of her teammates went
on the local news and didn't hold back.
Their main argument is about um fairness
and like sports and how she probably
could have like helped us win in ways or
like about fairness and equaleness in
sports, but like how about like fairness
among like humans, just us as humans?
Because right now she's not being
treated like a human. If she were here,
you could say something to her. What
would you say? How much I love her and I
I'm always there for her genuinely as a
human. Like I do like I love her so much
and she deserves to be treated as just
like everybody else. Yeah, she's right.
She's completely right. She just
encapsulated the argument I've been
trying to make for over half an hour,
but with a vibe both more emotional and
also substantially more chill. So,
first, thank you for that, Jordan. And
second, sorry to everyone else, because
now we're going back to my energy, which
we all know is significantly worse. And
look, for the final time, I will concede
there are degrees to which this issue is
meaningfully complicated. But I'd also
argue those complications are at the
elite levels of specific sports and we
can have conversations about what elite
means and where exactly to draw that
line. We can engage in good faith debate
about policies that actually balance
competition and inclusion. But it is
ironic that at the highest levels, some
sporting associations are still being
thoughtful and deliberate about this.
even as we are passing blanket bans for
elementary schools, which is brutal
because you've seen how much sports
means to the kids who play them. Taking
that away is not a harmless act. Not for
these kids or the multiple others you
haven't heard from tonight. Some of
whose stories we couldn't even show you
because the environment for trans kids
is so toxic right now that they
asked us not to draw attention to them
for their safety.
So if you are someone for whom this is
just about the integrity of competition
and for a lot of the loudest people
pushing this, I don't think it is. But
if that is the case for you, then I do
acknowledge we're going to disagree
about some things. But the one thing I'd
ask of you is that you recognize the
ugliness of how this issue gets
discussed and how it's being cynically
used by some to advance the eradication
of trans people generally. to get back
to what they know from scripture that
trans people are a myth. You know, the
same scripture that tells us the devil
is an unemployed angel and hair is for
footwashing or super strength and two
fish and some bread is a catering order
and votes for emergency zoos. Thanks be
to God. And and just to be clear, I'm
not happy to watch women experience
injury, humiliation, and a loss of
sporting opportunities. But that
includes trans women and kids, and they
seem to be getting hurt the most right
now.
Meanwhile, there are much bigger issues
regarding women's sports that we should
actually be addressing. And maybe that
could be what lawmakers prioritize
because for so many who are loudly
claiming they're going to bat for
women's sports, if I may paraphrase, the
single most honest mom of all time, so
far they've never hit a home run in
their life.