The GOP's war on trans athletes is about transphobia, yes, but I think it also very nicely demonstrates what so many people think youth sports are for: COMPETITION. Not a communal activity that brings people together; sports is a WAR for victory that trans kids are STEALING.
For so many people, the idea that we have physical recreation for youth some reason other than a Nike-branded "SECOND PLACE IS FIRST LOSER" deathmatch is completely foreign to them
If a kid's experience of youth sports was RUINED because they didn't win--which is the subtext of every "Trans athletes are DESTROYING sports" story--then maybe youth sports aren't serving all the kids who don't win (which is most of them) very well at all?
But hey, what do I know, I'm just someone who played a little baseball and ran track in school and sucked at all of it and never won anything
In other contexts, people will say that "learning to lose" is the most important character-building aspect of youth sports, along with working as a team.
This is a good point! The open hostility to recognizing the value of mere competition without victory, or the idea that "it's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game" as they say
https://twitter.com/zidaya/status/1402254605732352003
All of which is to say: the GOP wouldn't be able to weaponize this, and it wouldn't be such a thorny issue, if the underlying cultural terrain weren't ALREADY so toxic and we should maybe think about that
Like 10%-20% of student athletes are "winners" and everyone else is doing this. Whose experience do we prioritize?
https://twitter.com/TheLizLincoln/status/1402261801677508618
"Transitioning is a process of slowly discovering one’s mass...Because so many of us spend so long feeling dissociated from our bodies, exercise and movement end up being crucial components of our lives." nymag.com/intelligencer/…
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