As Republican congressmen gear up for the pre-midterm summer break, they’re tasked with highlighting a key issue ahead of the midterm elections in November: preventing transgender children from participating in sports.
inside official “field guide” The communications kit released by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to members of the convention, House Republicans members are encouraged to talk to “with athletes.” women in your community who have had to compete with biological men,” the conversations highlighted as an important plank in helping the party gain control of Congress.
“Republicans will put children’s future first and give parents a voice,” the guide stated, encouraging Republicans to promise that they will “make sure that only Only those who are born female can participate in girls’ sports.”
Proposing that members of Congress meet with school athletes to discuss “the unfairness of this disadvantage” by allowing transgender children to participate in group sports would reduce go what is considered part of a winning strategy in recent year-end elections. That strategy has targeted parents frustrated with how public schools are handling distance learning and face coverings during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the culture war issues of discussing sex in classroom settings. education and allow transgender students to participate in team sports that are consistent with their gender identity.
Transfer students are increasingly faced with hostility—even violence—The theme is the result of these campaigns, resulting in the largest number of anti-transgender laws ever enacted in a single year, with nine new measures restricting the rights of transgender children passed only in 2021. Most of the measures to ban children from participating in sports tournaments do not match their “biological gender” and often refer to transgender girls as “biological men.” .
Last month, McCarthy joined other House Republicans to mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX, a federal law that prohibits discrimination in public school programs on the basis of sex, in a panel discussion. roundtable on the “existential threat” to women’s sport of transgender participants.
“There is so much unfairness about this new system. It wiped out women’s sports. It attacks American values like fair competition,” says McCarthy, “and it creates a world where female athletes who speak out are actually bullied by their peers.”
During the fieldwork, McCarthy encouraged members to use their summer vacation time to organize similar events.
Despite the prominence of this issue in the Republican field guide, which places banning transgender girls from participating in sports as important as expanding school choice, arithmetic Transgender students participating in high school sports in 2020 are still less than thirty. Of those, only two led to complaints of “unfairness” from teammates or opponents.
