And another thing about trans kids and sports

Did I say, "Fuck cissexist theocrats!" yet?

Yeah, I know. I go a couple weeks with nothing, and then bombard you good folks. Well, I apologize, but some things have to be said.

It’s more or less on the same topic as my last post, but I want to make a very different point. The article Wonkette linked, published by WAPT-16, was an investigative report. It took on the subject of the number of trans kids playing sports in Mississippi’s school sports leagues, at primary, secondary, and university levels. The intro isn’t encouraging:

With the general election coming up, the airwaves have been flooded with campaign ads over the past few weeks. Many of those ads mention transgender athletes, specifically boys playing girls’ sports.

Yeah, no. The cissexists opposed to trans kids playing sports misgender some children as boys, but that doesn’t mean that they are boys. So I’m not excited about the framing. But this is typical. Their findings were also typical:

Emails were sent to all of the superintendents of Mississippi public school districts, to the Mississippi High School Activities Association, the Mississippi Community College Board and the Institutions of Higher Learning asking, “Are there any transgender athletes in public schools and universities in this state?”

The unanimous answer was, “No.”

Over and over in state after state — and not just red states — the issue of trans children in gendered children’s leagues is raised, and the number of trans players (not all of them are “athletes” at this level) is found to be minuscule or, in the case of Mississippi, zero.

The article treats this as an indication that no legislation regarding trans children in sports is actually necessary. We shouldn’t be spending time on this, articles consistently imply, spending multiple paragraphs discussing whether bans on this or that child playing this or that sport are “necessary”. And in fact that framing is so universal in every article I have read on the topic that I’m sure both of my readers here agree.

But I do not agree. Zero trans players is an indication that anti-trans hatred is successfully bullying trans kids out of playing sports.

Finding trans kids in sport would not have validated the cissexists’ concerns. The WAPT-16 article quotes the ACLU estimating that, “there are roughly 1,600 transgender youth between the ages of 13 and 17 in the state.” Now I’ll grant that many teens aren’t interested in playing school sports, and other children who might be interested don’t participate due to universal adolescent anxieties. So if 75% of trans kids did not play sports, I wouldn’t be concerned. The CDC reports that 54% of children 6-17 play organized sports each year (this data was collected over a period ending in 2020, though other years show similar numbers), though not all of these would be school sports. The number specifically playing school sports wasn’t easily available, but again, I’m fine with a rough and conservative estimate of 25% playing, 75% declining. Tellingly, the CDC report showed little gender variation in participation between the two most common genders (56% for boys, 52% for girls). And if you were wondering if there was more participation by young kids who get signed up by their parents? That’s also not true. The numbers went up very slightly (52.5% to 55.6%) between the 6-11 year old group and the 12-17 year old group. (The CDC also found that difference to be insignificant, so you can’t count on an increase among teens, but you certainly can’t count on a decrease.)

So we would expect about 800 trans folks in the 13-17 year age bracket, maybe a few more, playing children’s sports. And even if we assume half are playing sports away from school, that’s 400 trans players that we should expect to find.

Again, WAPT-16 found zero. Zero.

That's not good. That's a fucking nightmare, and every time I see a report that there's 0 or 1 or 2 trans kids playing sports in an entire state, I think, "Well that's a thousand kids we know would rather kill themselves than take a chance on being good at something or (god literally forbid) simply have some fun with cis friends because of all the bullying (by adults!) that getting noticed would bring."

There’s a lot to cry about. Israel. Gaza. Mike Johnson. Abortion bans. Las Vegas spending tens of millions of dollars to invent subways less disability accessible than the ones we’ve already got (and HOO BOY is that a low bar to try to dive under).

Even so, this gets me. Hot, sad, angry, painful tears rolled down my face this morning, and this wasn’t the only morning that’s happened. News outlets all over the country are bragging on behalf of the cissexists for their success in intimidating vulnerable kids, and they don't even realize it. How can one not weep?

Even our allies, in state after state, go on the record with statements asserting that legislation on this issue is harmful and unnecessary. WAPT-16 reported the same in Mississippi.

The truth is that legislation on this issue is necessary, and its absence is harmful. Zero trans sports players. ZERO.

There already is a ban. WAPT-16 has just reported on it. And legislation on this topic is desperately needed if there are zero trans kids — or 1 or 2 — out of hundreds or thousands, when more than 500 out of each thousand cis children are playing sports. What does it say about the ruthless consistency of schools’ bullying of trans kids that there is not one willing and welcomed to stand next to their peers and say, “I’m with them. We’re gonna go rain some hell down on Shelbyville.”

I am tired of reading article after article assuming that the fewer trans kids play sports, the less we should be concerned with their participation. I am tired of hearing the people around me say that consistent exclusion proves there is no issue with trans kids’ participation in kids’ activities. I am tired of crying.

Please, the next time you read one of these articles, don’t yell at the theocrats for targeting kids unnecessarily. That just buys in to the assumption that 30 or 40 trans kids playing sports in Mississippi would make it reasonable to debate a ban instead of necessary to debate how to make 400 more feel welcome among their peers.

Next time you read reporting on low numbers of trans sports players, try yelling at the media who uncritically accept that trans children enjoying themselves, learning social skills, making friends, and creating supportive social networks could possibly justify even a debate over a ban. Ask them why they see nothing wrong with isolating 400 or 800 children, knowing that social isolation is one of the highest risk factors for teen suicide, trans or not.

We can rage at the theocrats any damn day. They’re always saying things that we can use to justify a rant or three. You won’t miss your daily quota.

So let’s look at these reports that fail to find trans children anywhere in the social circles where we should find hundreds of happy, thriving, beautiful trans faces and demand to know why the people that claim to be neutral reporters won’t even raise the issue of underrepresentation.

Let’s demand to know why the anxieties of 50 year old legislators are more relevant to reporting on school sports than the bullying and exclusion of hundreds of 15 year old students. There is no more time and no more room to accommodate this ignorant, prejudiced view of whose lives matter.