It really sounds like somebody in the Queen Creek School District wanted to make a political issue out of him. Presumably, as cited in the article, the state law they pointed to enacted in 2022, which mandates that school sports teams must be designated “based on the biological sex of the students who participate” in the sport. It doesn’t matter where you are in the political aisle, it’s pretty shameless to exploit this politically, even if it’s just so they can go “look at how senseless this law is!” by making an issue out of its strictest interpretation.
which mandates that school sports teams must be designated “based on the biological sex of the students who participate” in the sport.
His biological sex is female. At least, according to the laws that transphobes have written. The problem with the term “biological sex” is that it’s far more complicated than conservatives pretend.
For example, I’m a trans woman myself. If I had been born with an (age appropriate) of the body I have now, I would have been assigned female at birth. And according to all these new Jim Crow laws, I would be required to use the female facilities and accommodations, literally having the exact same body I do now.
You can try to claim that sex is chromosomes, but a biologist would laugh in your face. There is so much variance to human biological development that chromosomes don’t begin to fully describe natal biological sex. And even if you ignored all that and went with chromosomes anyway? You could just genetically test everyone. But then conservative voters would hate that. The purpose of these laws is to destroy trans people, not to inconvenience cis people. And legislators don’t want to force white suburban parents to pay $2000 for chromosome testing whenever their kid wants to join a sports team.
What else could they use? They could use hormones. A very good argument can be made that hormones simply are a person’s biological sex. Hormones are what after all causes someone to actually develop a penis or vagina in the first place. So why not use a cheap blood test and assign sports based on hormones? Well, again, the purpose of the law is to destroy trans people. And it’s pretty easy to alter your hormones. Conservatives need rigid, unalterable, lifelong sex categories. Without those, they wouldn’t be able to justify forcing women to be second class citizens.
What else? You could use physical features. You could have a coach visually inspect the genitals of every student who signs up for a team, but that has obvious problems. The coaching profession already is a magnet for pedophiles. Plus, again, the purpose of the law is to destroy trans people, not inconvenience cis people. And no parents wants the coach looking at their kid’s junk.
That’s the problem with laws like this. That’s what trans people have been shouting from the rooftops for years, but we’ve been ignored. The concept of “biological sex” is hopelessly vague. The use of the term is just a way of putting up a “no tr*nnies allowed” sign while attempting to be legally defensible. It’s completely unworkable as a tool of assigning sports teams or public accomodations. So instead, the laws were written to use the only tool available: birth certificates. Legally speaking, in Republican states, the sex on your birth certificate IS your biological sex. Your actual genetics, gonads, hormones, etc are completely irrelevant. If your original birth certificate says F, you are female, forever. Your actual biology is irrelevant, you are biologically female, legally speaking.
So no, this isn’t just some cruel political statement. This is the law being implemented exactly the way it was written. Trans people warned folks that any attempt to legislate trans people out of existence would have numerous knock-on effects for cis people. But in these states, they were too excited about the possibility of getting to destroy a few trans folks to worry about whatever those trans folks were screeching about.
You cannot just use “biological sex” in a law. You have to define precisely what that phrase means. And as conservatives don’t like the definition of “biological sex” that actual biologists come up with, they have to try to craft a legal definition that destroys trans people without inconveniencing cis people. And that simply isn’t possible. There’s no way to write legislation that destroys trans people without also harming a few cis people as collateral damage.
Your gender is what you declare
Your gender is what’s in your pants
Your gender is what I declareThis is the kind of stupid bullshit republicans create because they don’t solve problems they create contraversies in a lab and then when they actually get voted into office to “solve” them they literally do stupid shit like this.
So after all the hysteria about “biological males” in women’s sports/changing rooms/bathrooms, they have succeeded in forcing a biological male into women’s sports/changing rooms/bathrooms.
Just to go full circle on their dumbfuckery, I’d bet that they’ll start advocating for the school to pay to have him transition against his will so his outward appearance will match his birth cert.
It’s basically eugenics the long way round so yeah, it’ll be an instant success with the base
They’ll be grooming him into a femboy soon enough, y’know, because masculine men should dominate inferior males. Not because they’re gay, or anything.
State sponsored thigh highs, mandatory white monster, and full ride scholarships into nuclear engineering and programming!
“thems the rules” mother fuckers when it’s convenient.
Can we just separate kids by skill level rather than gender? My middle school cis son loves playing sports, but he’s not very good. He gets discouraged when the better kids bully him because of it.
Skill based matchmaking. Most competitive video games use it. Why not IRL?
I don’t see why bottom tier teams shouldn’t be co-ed. PE we did co ed sports days all the time and its more about getting exercise than winning.
Maybe, for “rec league” or whatever, but school teams are usually meant to be competitive, and non-gendered sports would mean girls wouldn’t have equitable access to athletics.
But even for non-competitive teams, girls are unlikely to be able to access shared sports to the same level as boys. At a party school I worked at, there was a major challenge with girls being willing to access open gym time, feeling uncomfortable advocating for access to basketball nets for practice—even girls who were on the competitive team felt they couldn’t use open gym time.
TL;DR: Sexism runs deep. We need policies that recognize that and build equity, not just offer “equality” that perpetuates, or even magnifies, the problem.
What’s a party school?
Maybe we just need new sports.
I’m glad the people that had emotional meltdowns over the chance of boys being on girls teams… have made a boy, by their own actions and stupidity, be forced on the girls team
Sex segregation in childrens sports is legitimately a powerful indoctrinating force for binary sexism and the enforcement of gender roles.
It’s not my fault that Buttle’s
heart conditionpenis didn’t appear on Tuttle’s file!So glad kids can experience political influence in their personal lives. They will learn what needs to burn down.
A town that shuns a child risk that child burning it down just to feel the warmth.
i think sport, exspecially in schools, should always be mixed. Also i think the competetivness of american school sport is kind of toxic, it should be about having fun
This is basketball, a sport that rewards tallness. By eighth grade boys are on average taller than girls. Even before you look at other gender differences, girls would be at significant disadvantage.
Many/most people are competitive, and competitiveness doesn’t have to be toxic. It’s fine for you not to be competitive, but people are, and it’s unreasonable to ask them to repress that part of their personality
i think sport, exspecially in schools, should always be mixed.
Girls’ teams exist entirely to guarantee girls a number of slots, on the presumption that on average in most sports once you hit puberty generally the boys will start to dramatically outperform the girls due to things like size, upper body strength and other traits that are broadly connected to testosterone levels. Then you have things like chess, where you still have a women’s league, but that basically exists because “not enough” women play chess and the notion is that a smaller talent pool broadly means easier competition that will in turn be more approachable.
Mixed teams in school sports as a general practice won’t happen unless specific minimums are mandated, because it would impact competitiveness.
At the same time, under Title IX, if there is no girl’s team and a girl wants to play a sport she must be allowed to try out and must be allowed to play if she can pass try outs. The reverse is not required under current interpretations, leading to a weirdly discriminatory interpretation of a law banning discrimination.
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Ultimate Frisbee did this by forcing a certain number of boys/girl per team. If you don’t impose that you end up with a boys team anyway at high level.
i think sport, exspecially in schools, should always be mixed
At the middle school age range, girls are typically bigger and stronger than their male peers. Boys don’t catch up until 14-16, at which point they rapidly put on height and mass to exceed their girl peers.
And what about it? It’s been demonstrated within equality movements that statistical biological strength corresponding to sex does not always correspond to actual performance.
Mixed sports will allow a more inclusive learning style, which technically will allow a greater variety of skills to be develop and more opportunities for the future.
It’s been demonstrated within equality movements that statistical biological strength corresponding to sex does not always correspond to actual performance.
Depends heavily on the sport and the quality of coaching. Direct contact sports - football in particular - present real risks to the players when there’s a big disparity in size and strength.
But then there’s an argument that middle/high school contact sports shouldn’t be allowed to begin with, precisely because of the risk of injury.
big disparity in size and strength
So what you’re essentially saying is we should make decisions based on the individuals weight class rather than gender?
That would be the logical thing to do.
Although, even then no public school should be sponsoring full contact sports, full stop.
Yeah, that will work out well. I cannot think of a sport that is played in school that would fair to the girls if all sports were mixed teams. By the time kids are 13-14 years old, the boys are starting to get to be bigger, taller, faster, and stronger. And the disparity only gets worse as they age.
And one of the driving tenants of sports IS to teach competitiveness.
In my school we had boys the same age who had a foot of height and 80 pounds of weight difference between them. There are better ways to divide competition other than gender.
Why should we be teaching competitiveness? That’s how you turn society into individuals who only look out for their own needs and are apathetic when you do things like a fascist coup. Oh wait…
Nah, I’d much rather be teaching kids cooperation.
(Sports are still great, but not for the reason of teaching competitiveness).
Competition is literally the basis of almost every sport. How would hockey, for example, be played without competition?
I feel like that could be fixed by just doing a weight class so gender does not become the factor but overall strength and that also gives the opportunity for weaker boys to play sports and not get boxed out in boys only sports and stronger girls “like girls with PCOS” to not dominate girl Sports.
Or maybe it’s already fixed by larger schools having multiple teams, such as varsity, Jv, freshmen. Or different leagues, like rec leagues, town leagues. Or gym class sports which are never competitive.
But it’s ridiculous to think it fair if the high level teams are essentially all boys, and the girls are stuck on the crappy team with boys who can’t play. No one will be happy with that
The kids WILL turn everything into a competition no matter what you think you are doing to prevent that. Humans are naturally competitive. Like it or not.
The kids WILL turn everything into a competition
In my experience, it’s the parents that need to make every Little League Rec scrimmage into the final game of the world series.
The kids WILL turn everything into a competition
Are you the kids?
No but he has been a kid, we all have. We are literally all experts in this field assuming you weren’t home schooled or avoided all extra curriculars.
My initial question wasn’t about individualistic viewpoints. The question is, are you an expert In knowing others intentions other than yourself?
I don’t know how American birth certificates work. Is he officially female for life, unless he wants it changed?
I imagine trans people would be quite happy in such a situation. Like winning the lottery.
Normally people use common sense, it’s obviously a clerical error and you can get the paperwork fixed.
This is an example of right wing scare tactics against trans people in sports creating stupid laws that also don’t allow for the messiness of real life. I didn’t pay attention but it’ll be local to either the state or city
From the article it sounds like the birth certificate was corrected but the school isn’t accepting the change without a chromosome test, which costs $1,500. There’s another test that they could do that’s free, slightly embarrassing, and takes just a moment, but would require an adult to look when the kid drops his pants. It’s such a stupid non-issue. I can’t believe this happened, that we know about it, and that it hasn’t been resolved yet.
That wouldn’t work. Conservatives needed to write iron-clad laws that no trans person could find a way around. If you base it on genitals, what happens when someone goes and gets sex reassignment surgery? That’s not done on minors, but conservatives don’t know that. How’s a school coach to know that he isn’t a trans guy that snuck off to Thailand one summer and got a dick installed? This is why these laws reference the original birth certificate. The entire point is to make it so sex is immutable and unchangeable.
This is what doctor’s notes are for. And they had one.
These laws were written to hurt trans people. They were written to make it very difficult for trans people to find loopholes to get around. That is the problem here.
Let’s say the errors on sex could be corrected with a doctor’s note. But what you’re really asking for is for a sex marker to be changed, simply citing an error in original sex assignment. You are going to plead that your real sex is unmatched to your documented marker. But what is sex? “Sex” is a very fuzzy thing. Is it genetics? Genitals? Chromosomes? Secondary sex characteristics? Conservatives like chromosomes because their inalterability serves the conservative worldview. But historically we used primary and secondary sex characteristics to define sex. We talked about “male” and “female” since the dawn of time, but we’ve known about chromosomes for less than a century. Historically, your sex was simply your observable physical form. If you alter that, in a very real sense you do change your biological sex. There are many interpretations of the word “sex” and the phrase “biological sex.” Some allow them to be changed, some not. And, wherever you fall on that question personally, you can find doctors who follow any of the possible definitions of the terms.
In fact, in states that allow you to change your sex on your birth certificate, traditionally this is how it was done. The state would require a letter from a physician saying your biological sex has been changed. Some states specifically required surgery. Some just left it up to the doctor’s interpretation. If you could convince a doctor that you had changed your sex, then your sex could be legally changed.
And this is the problem. You would think you could correct this error with a doctor’s note. But the Republicans already thought of that. This cis kid could use a doctor’s note to prove that he’s biologically male. A trans kid could use that exact same mechanism to get a doctor to say that their sex is now male. Just find a doctor that believes that sex is largely hormonal. A trans boy gets on T, and, in that doctor’s eyes, their sex has now literally been changed. And they could write a letter to that effect. And the doctor wouldn’t have to lie at all. It all comes down to your interpretation of “sex.”
These laws were written to hurt trans people. To do this, they needed sex to be legally defined in a very strict and unalterable way. They wanted to make the process so ironclad that no trans person could ever weasel their way past them. Thus, they only allow corrections of birth certificates in some very specific ways that no trans person could use. They don’t just leave it up to a licensed doctor. Licensed doctors are the ones providing medical care to trans people. The laws instead require things like chromosomal testing. Chromosomes are one thing that can’t be changed. If you require chromosomal testing to correct an error on an original birth certificate, then you can make it virtually impossible for a trans person to change theirs. But it does have the slight downside of making it very expensive to correct actual clerical errors.
And this will be true regardless of how you want to screen for original biological sex. The tall and strong gate will make it hard for your enemy to pass. But it will also make it difficult to let in a friend that gets accidentally trapped outside in the night.
There is a process to amend birth certificates, presumably initially intended for errors like this. But then people who successfully transitioned used the process to amend their birth certificates to reflect their new gender, because there was no other way to do it. The transphobes seized on this, and started processes that refuse to honor any late changes to birth certificates.
It should have been a simple matter to resolve - his doctor wites a note saying “This kid has boy parts, and always has. The birth certificate was always an administrative error”. But then, that would force the transphobes to acknowledge a role for facts and science to contradict their feelings. So, we can’t have that either.
So, they go on claiming that they are just out for the best interests of kids, and that justifies why they are treating this kid so poorly. When in reality, they are just protecting their narrative, at his expense.
In current US, he’s probably going to have to transition.
The principal really needs to read the law. This school is so fucked.
https://codes.findlaw.com/az/title-15-education/az-rev-st-sect-15-120-02/
The law in question only prohibits biological males from participating in female sports. It does not prohibit females from joining boys teams. Compare and contrast sections “B” and “C”:
B. Athletic teams or sports designated for “females”, “women” or “girls” may not be open to students of the male sex.
C. This section does not restrict the eligibility of any student to participate in any interscholastic or intramural athletic team or sport designated as being for “males”, “men” or “boys” or designated as “coed” or “mixed”.
I also thought this was pretty interesting:
E. Any student who is deprived of an athletic opportunity or suffers any direct or indirect harm as a result of a school knowingly violating this section has a private cause of action for injunctive relief, damages and any other relief available under law against the school.
The law in question only prohibits biological males from participating in female sports. It does not prohibit females from joining boys teams.
There’s a simple reason for that - the second sentence is required under current interpretations of Title IX, while the first is not. The argument for that is about girl’s sports being a sort of protected space for girls, so it’s OK to bar non-girls (however your jurisdiction chooses to define that) from girls sports, but “boys” sports are actually for everyone who can compete.
The problem is the Trump administration is pushing for this. They’re saying schools can only allow students to play on teams based on their assigned gender at birth. The federal government is using coercion to force states to comply
There is no specific law to follow, since it’s just based on the whims of the federal government. The punishment is withholding funding. There is to judge, jury, or courts of any kind involved. Simply the federal government refusing to release funding if they dislike what states are doing. The AZ law is comparatively toothless
The effect of this is the same as it always is with these types of capricious authoritarian governments: A chilling effect. Actors are overly cautious to avoid drawing the wrath of the powerful central government – Trump in this case
This is literally one of these first things they teach in a (at least NY public high schools) coaching course.
AFAIK, when a law says something like “This section does not [do something]” It’s usually because some other law explicitly prohibits [something]. Without such language, the two laws could be seen as conflicting.
I think excluding girls from boys teams violates Title IX.
Title IX requires gender equity in access and spending. It doesn’t strictly require women to access men’s sports, but it does require the school fully fund/admit women to equivalent in the abstract.
So, for instance, if you spend $100k/year on the boys-only football program, you need $100k dedicated to a girl accessible sport (typically volleyball or softball or soccer).
We informed the parent that documentation such as a chromosome analysis could be considered to help support or verify eligibility in accordance with policy.
I cannot imagine being the dumbass who said that with a straight face.
I don’t understand why it’s the school asking for this and not whoever updated the birth certificate? How did school administrators become the judges of who is a boy or girl?
From reading the articles about this: The birth certificate was already updated, no problem. The school, however, has its internal policy regarding “amended birth certificates”. The school policy says this boy is to be treated as a girl, because his sex is F. It doesn’t go any deeper than that. This is the hell of bureaucracy.
Even according to their own policy they’re not fully treating him as a girl - why is it mandated for him to be using a personal changing room if he is a girl?
This is essentially a contradiction, solely manufactured to alienate him.
It’s so they don’t “lose” in this case and acknowledge it’s stupid because then people might realize it’s stupid in general. They think tormenting this one cis kid is worth it to keep even a single real trans person out of sports because they think it will open the floodgates. That and there’s a decent chance the school administrators legitimately think this kid is trans and part of a massive conspiracy against their school because that’s where we’re at
republican laws often give the final say to the loudest karen and the cost onto the schools.
My (cis female) birth certificate erroneously was filled out with “male”. Same error happened on the birth certificate of my mother (who is also cis female). It’s never caused either of us any problems. Schools enrolled us as female, driver’s licenses say female, etc.
When I was in college in the early 2000s, my dad’s mother helped me get a copy of my birth certificate, and was horrified her beautiful granddaughter was listed as male. She called up the county clerk and raised Cain, and then informed me it had been corrected. I’ve never needed to get a fresh copy since then, so I don’t know for sure, but it sounded like the word of an angry old lady was enough to get an update filed.
My (cis female) birth certificate erroneously was filled out with “male”. Same error happened on the birth certificate of my mother (who is also cis female).
Do they use drunkards to fill out important registration forms in the US?
There’s something like thirty boxes of information on the thing, and all the others are correct. I suspect whoever was typing it (on a typewriter - this was pre-computers) had several in a row that really were male babies and just got that stuck in their head.
How difficult is it to correct an obviously wrong record in the US?
Used to not be a problem. But people transitioning use the same process to amend their records, so now there’s roadblocks.
They actually sent the school an amended certificate, and a doctor’s note explaining everything. The school just isn’t satisfied.
Depends on how braindead the clerk is.
When you’re doing it matters a lot too. It was much easier before, but now that gender is a huge political football the process has been mucked up
Angry old ladies are the single scariest force on the planet.
Because if you make one angry, then you have to answer to all of their friends, family, caretakers, religious leaders, and bingo dealers.
They are also the reason why we are in this situation in the first play. Angry old lady energy serves both justice and tyranny.
Because their the ones who will be prosecuted under the law if they allow a kid to play on the wrong team.
Did anyone inform the administration that documentation such as chromosome analysis could be considered to help support or verify eligibility in participating with the human race? Because it seems like they might be a slime mold, based on their integrity and decision-making ability.
Feels like malicious compliance to me. But who knows.
Edit: For those downvoting, someone else in the comments pasted a quote about a law that was passed in that state. So I was just speculating that maybe they were maliciously complying to show how ridiculous it is.
Unfortunately, the one experiencing the greatest maliciousness here is the kid.
It’s never actually about what’s good for the kids. It’s about control and tribalism
That’s always the way.
That’s an interesting take. I didn’t think of it until you mentioned it, and now I need this to be true.
What a USA thing to do. Holy shit.
Because trans issues are completely solved in other parts of the world.
This isn’t a trans issue. It’s an absurd bureaucracy failing to function because of political incontinence
It’s a trans issue. It only became a bureaucratic issue because of a rule rooted in transphobia.
Even a rule rooted in transphobia could be well written. This one is not.
