The United States Department of Education has given Palatine, Illinois School District 30 days to reach a “solution” that allows a “transgendered” boy who says he is a girl to shower with the girls. Failure to comply could result in the loss of federal Title IX funds.
The young man in question “identifies” as a girl. The school district has allowed him to play on the girls’ sports team. He is called “she” by school staff who refer to him by a female name. He says his “rights” are being violated because the school district asks him to change clothes behind a curtain rather than in front of the girls on the team, and to shower separately from them.
So. We have a teen-aged boy who says that he is a girl. He wants to play sports on a girl’s team and shower and change with the girls. If he is sincere, he’s mentally ill. If he’s not sincere, it’s possible that he’s found a trendy way to gain access to the girl’s locker room for the ultimate peep show.
I know this question is not politically correct, but do the actual girls have any rights in this?
Forcing them to change and shower in the presence of a young man is a psychological violation. It is abuse. Do the words “sexual harassment” ring a bell? How about misogyny?
Female athletes have fought long and hard to be taken seriously. They have had to overcome millennia of discrimination and overt prejudice. They deal with this still.
Now, all their hard-won gains stand to be wiped out. Young female athletes are being forced to choose between playing their sport and being subjected to what amounts to a violation of their most basic rights to privacy and dignity as young women, all because of trendy, politically-correct nihilism.
So far as I know, the “feminist” movement has been silent on this. But the overall issue has set off argument within feminist ranks.
For instance, the absurdity of Bruce Jenner being named “Woman of the Year” by a leading women’s publication raised the hackles of old-time feminist Germaine Greer. She rightly labeled the action “misogyny.” At the same time, other feminists support the faux woman movement.
I find the idea that any woman would support this attack on the female incomprehensible. Yet, sadly, it does not surprise me. The feminist movement that worked so hard to help female athletes win opportunities and respect is dead.
For a long time now, the feminist movement has served as the moral apologist for enterprises that were frankly and openly misogynist, such as purveyors of porn and those who pimp women’s bodies in prostitution. This happened because the feminist movement threw away every other issue in the fight to “save” legal abortion.
The misogynist response to any situation is to ignore the rights of women when those rights are attacked. When the misogynist in question is a conservative, this is excused by an appeal to some sort of hatched up economic imperative.
When the misogynist is liberal, we get a blizzard of phony “rights talk,” which, ironically, ignores absolutely the rights of the female by explaining that the womenfolk must accede their rights to this more pressing and noble need. That is what is happening now.
A feminist defense of female athlete’s rights would counter that. But I don’t expect it to happen.
It looks like it’s up to the parents of these young girls to defend their daughters. I’m sure they are proud of their daughters’ athleticism, and want to see them have opportunities to compete. What are these parents supposed to do? Do they pull their daughters from the team? Do they form other teams for the girls, outside of school?
These are serious questions with serious repercussions. Feminists — real feminists — fought hard to get Title IX money for women’s sports. There was a time, not so long ago, when all that money went to the males and the women athletes were consigned to using second hand and worn-out equipment with no respect and no support.
Are the hard-won gains that women athletes have made going to be tossed away because of a ruling by unelected Department of Education agency personnel who are not answerable to the people? How much misogyny are we willing to allow?
Perhaps the parents of the girls need to get attorneys and file suit. After all, last time I checked, women still have legal rights in these United States of America.
Of course, what really needs to happen is for Congress to step in and fix this. They can, you know. All they have to do is their jobs.