- They are not girls, they need treatment, and they should not be allowed on girl’s teams
Iowa State Representative Sharon Steckman (D – Cerro Gordo) made a statement to the Iowa Standard yesterday referring to a bill (HF 2309) introduced in order to protect public school girl’s sports for what it was intended to be, for biological female students. You can read her comments here.
Rep. Steckman makes the statement referring to HF 2309 that it “discriminates against and prevents transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports in middle and high school.” Of course she tries to paint the issue as discrimination involving students of the same sex. One type of girl or another. But the generic students she refers to are not of the same sex. There are biologic female students with certain definitive genetic attributes and male students who have certain definitive genetic attributes including attributes that give them advantages over females in sports who think they want to be girls but are psychologically screwed up. Bifurcating and restricting competition based on sex has never been treated as unreasonable discrimination indeed it is appropriate for a host of practical, cultural and fairness reasons all of which serve to protect actual girls and girl sports.
By legislator Sharon Steckman’s standards if the male students she refers to are “girls” then allowing them to compete for records or to augment female student team sports discriminates against females students who cannot afford the cost or have the warped desire to endure the physical and mental health risk of augmentation to compete with those so called girls who come with musculature and lung capacity and bone density not natural to their sex. And if one student gets to use drugs or hormonal “therapies” to satisfy a desire to compete in girls athletics (which do not eliminate basic sex linked advantages), why cannot a girl use drugs or hormonal therapies to enhance their attributes in order to compete in girls athletics and even the playing field with the biological male they will compete against?
Sharon Steckman says she “did not come to the Statehouse to pass discriminatory laws against Iowa children.” Then is she there to sustain them? Has she introduced a bill to ban discrimination based on age within school athletics, or is a presumption about physicality linked to age appropriate? Most reasonable people would think such is appropriate. That is why a presumption regarding sex linked characteristics indeed DNA is appropriate. The bigger question is why does Sharon Steckman want to discriminate against indeed punish unmodified girls in the realm of scholarships and other awards associated with school athletics?
Related reading: Transgender swimmer destroys competition at Ivy League Championships, winning 500 free by more than 7 seconds
