Lies, damn lies, and political ads

A bizarre political flyer landed in our mailbox the other day. The right-wing nut jobs have decided the way to defeat the reproductive freedom proposition that's on the ballot here in Michigan is by enrolling the specter of prepubescent children being allowed to request elective hysterectomies without bothering to obtain parental consent first. Apparently the Betsy DeVos crowd believes the average person is so brain dead that he or she will believe that allowing adult women to obtain abortions is going to lead to children deciding to change genders. 

The television equivalent of the print ad is pretty strange, too. As the text of the proposed resolution is displayed on screen, the word "sterilization" is highlighted while the voice-over talks about protecting children. The reason sterilization is in the resolution, of course, is that women often find it next to impossible to obtain procedures such as a tubal ligation if they're still of child-bearing age. Adults can make fully informed, conscious decisions that they do not want to have children and then discover doctors will refuse to perform the minor surgery involved because "you might change your mind." Doesn't matter if you already have multiple children and have decided that's enough, you've learned your family's medical history includes some potentially nasty disorders, or you simply do not want to be a parent, many physicians will still refuse to allow you to obtain a voluntary sterilization. Somehow that anti-choice crowd equates that with allowing minors to receive care for gender dysphoria.

The part where the stupid truly burns, of course, is when they suggest that children as young as 10 or 11 will be able to obtain prescription drugs or elective surgeries without parental consent. Does anyone with even half a brain believe there are physicians practicing who'd treat pre-pubescent minors without a parent or guardian present? Would a child even make it past the clinic receptionist?    

Then again, I find the whole trans-phobia phenomenon pretty strange to begin with -- trans people are not exactly everywhere so I don't get the fear factor at all. Ditto the paranoia about an occasional trans girl participating in sports and thus having an unfair advantage just through the possible possession of a penis. A few months ago there was a lot of fulminating about a trans woman on a college swim team who's came in first in a meet or two. Lots and lots of ranting about unfair advantage, especially from the young women who lost to her. What was totally ignored is that particular college athlete had been in quite a few meets and lost a bunch of them. If the having been born with a dick gave her a special advantage, her winning stats would be better than they are. 

In any case, it's definitely weird how the known existence of one trans person participating in a sport will suddenly have the bigots freaking out and apparently seeing trans people everywhere. I'm willing to bet that if you were to do a survey of college swimmers asking how many trans women are on swim teams the nation-wide answer would be "one." But that one person's existence has insecure cis people freaking out and warning that pretty soon hordes of men pretending to be trans will be trying to get on swim teams everywhere. It must be exhausting to be that paranoid and fearful all the time. 

And while we're on the subject of sports, why isn't anyone freaking out about girls playing traditional boys' sports, like football. One of our local high schools has at least one girl on its football team. I can't recall what position she plays*, but no one that I know of is throwing fits about it. On a macro level, I've noticed a number of articles this fall celebrating female high school football players, like the quarterback in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, whose team won their homecoming game 66-6. Of course, girls playing boys sports aren't view as threats because societal ingrained sexism doesn't take them seriously. It's more like, "How cute. She'll outgrow it."   

*I'm guessing either kicker or quarterback, as those seem to be the positions girls most commonly end up playing, although if she's fast on her feet running back would be a good bet, too.