Thursday, March 28, 2024

They Want Us!

With all they sports bans on trans athletes, one sport is welcoming us with open arms!
AP News
BY PHILIP MARCELO
March 27, 2024


They zip around the rink, armed with helmets, pads and mouthguards. They push, bump and occasionally crash out as they jostle for position on the hardwood floor.

But for the women of the Long Island Roller Rebels, their biggest battle is taking place outside the suburban strip-mall roller rink where they’re girding for the upcoming roller derby season.

The nearly 20-year-old amateur league is suing a county leader over an executive order meant to prevent women’s and girl’s leagues and teams with transgender players from using county-run parks and fields. The league’s legal effort, backed by the New York Civil Liberties Union, has thrust it into the national discussion over the rights of transgender athletes.

Amanda Urena, the league’s vice president, said there was never any question the group would take a stand.

“The whole point of derby has been to be this thing where people feel welcome,” said the 32-year-old Long Island native, who competes as “Curly Fry” and identifies as queer, at a recent practice at United Skates of America in Seaford. “We want trans women to know that we want you to come play with us, and we’ll do our very best to keep fighting and making sure that this is a safe space for you to play.”
I knew of a trans woman who was on a local roller derby team, until she broke something and decided it wasn’t her sport.
The latest revival started in the early 2000s and has been sustained by LGBTQ+ people, with leagues frequently taking part in Pride parades and holding fundraising matches, Atwell said.

“You come in here and you say, ‘I’m a trans woman. I’m a nonbinary person. I’m genderqueer.’ OK? We accept you,” said Caitlin Carroll, a Roller Rebel who competes as “Catastrophic Danger.” “The world is scary enough. You should have a safe place to be.”
Um… I don’t how to put this to you but roller derbies is not exactly for cupcakes, it is known for broken bones. As my friend showed. But they are also very LGBTQ+ friendly!
The ban could even lead to cisgender female athletes who are strong and muscular being falsely labeled transgender and disqualified, as has happened elsewhere, said Shane Diamond, a transgender man who plays recreational LGBTQ+ ice hockey in New York City.

“It creates a system where any young woman who doesn’t fit the stereotypical idea of femininity and womanhood is at risk of having her gender questioned or gender policed,” Diamond said.
We have seen it this past February when ABC News wrote,
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and other local leaders are calling for the resignation of Utah state school board member Natalie Cline after she falsely suggested a girl playing on a high school basketball team was transgender in a now-deleted Facebook post.

The girl quickly became the target of threats and harassment online, with the girl's family speaking out about the incident in an interview with Salt Lake City ABC affiliate KTVX.
The British newspaper Independent reported that,
A grandparent shut down a school sports event when he falsely accused a nine-year-old with a “pixie” haircut of being trans.

The youngster was taking part in a shot-put competition when the relative of one of the other participants disrupted the event in the Canadian town of Kelowna, British Columbia.

“She went to step up to compete for the grade four shot-put final, and right before she went to throw, a grandfather of a student said, ‘Hey, this is supposed to be a girls’ event, and why are you letting boys compete.’ My daughter is cisgender, born female, uses she/her pronouns. She has a pixie haircut,” her mother Heidi Starr told Castanet.
Also in Canada CBC reported,
A B.C. family has garnered sympathy online — and international media attention — after sharing what they described as an incident in which a man questioned their nine-year-old daughter's gender during a sporting event.

They say the incident occurred during a track-and-field meet at the Apple Bowl Stadium in Kelowna, B.C., organized by the Central Okanagan School District for elementary school students.

Heidi Starr said her daughter, who is cisgender and has a pixie cut, was preparing for a shot put contest when a man approached a parent volunteer, pointed to the nine-year-old and, mistaking her for a boy, questioned why a boy was participating in a girls' event.
The gender police are going after anyone who do not fit their idea of what a girl should look like.

They Got A Big Problem!

You probably all have seen the news about the NCAA Women’s Tournament racist incident in Idaho, well the state has bigger problem than that one incident.
Officials in Idaho tried to apologize Tuesday for the racism the University of Utah's women's basketball team faced in Coeur d'Alene before an NCAA tournament game at Gonzaga.

Yes, but: They abruptly shut down the news conference when a far-right operative began shouting questions at a human rights advocate.
In another news article, this one in the Idaho Statesman…
BY IAN MAX By STEVENSON
MARCH 27, 2024


Far-right influencers in Idaho on Tuesday were quick to cast doubt on reports that the University of Utah women’s basketball team attending the NCAA Tournament left Coeur d’Alene after its members were repeatedly shouted at with racial slurs.

The incident prompted statements from Idaho Gov. Brad Little and Lt. Gov. Scott Bedke, both of whom condemned the actions of people in the North Idaho city who shouted racial slurs, including the N-word, at team members who were staying at the Coeur d’Alene Resort for the tournament in Spokane, Washington, according to accounts by city and county leaders. Law enforcement said they were investigating the case as a possible hate crime.

The driver of a truck displaying a Confederate flag revved its engine alongside the on-foot team members and shouted racial epithets at them as they walked to and from dinner at a restaurant, according to Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations Secretary Tony Stewart. When they later left the restaurant, team members faced a larger group of people who revved their engines and continued to shout racial slurs, according to Stewart and previous Idaho Statesman reporting.
That is there usual tactic blame the others. It is never the racist’s fault, when the oppressed speak up then they are the ones being belligerent and the aggressor, we saw that with the death of Nix Bennett, they blame here because after all the bullying and harassment Nix threw water at her tormentors.
Dave Reilly, a far-right agitator who has faced repeated accusations of antisemitism and racism, heckled city leaders in Coeur d’Alene who held a news conference Tuesday, according to the Spokesman-Review, after which the news conference quickly concluded.

Reilly on radio station KBOI claimed he didn’t doubt the incident occurred but questioned the news conference “conveniently happening” one day after Little signed a new state law banning practices of diversity, equity and inclusion in state government and at state universities. But he also posted Tuesday that there was a Jussie Smollett ”incident going on,” in reference to a false hate crime reported by the celebrity, and called it “a big nothingburger” designed to take over the local Republican Party.

The Idaho Tribune, a far-right blog, posted on social media that “the group promoting the alleged ‘hate crime’ in Coeur d’Alene has a long history of hate hoaxes in the past” and blamed the Human Rights Education Institute for “manipulating the situation for political gain.” The Tribune’s post referenced the Education Institute’s employment of Rachel Dolezal, a former NAACP leader and white woman who became known for claiming she was Black. (Jeanette Laster, executive director of the Education Institute, confirmed Dolezal previously worked at the institute, before Laster worked there, but told the Statesman there was no indication she brought forward “hoaxes” about hate crimes.)
That is how they operate, they sit there with their little halos all innocent like.
Rep. Heather Scott, a North Idaho Republican whose district includes parts of Kootenai County, posted on X while the news conference was ongoing and about 20 minutes after Little released his statement. Scott wrote that people are too “gullible” and that “we see obvious lies in the media on certain topics then rush back to believe the same liars.”
Idaho is turning in to a citadel of white supremacy and Christian Nationalism.

It Is Going To Be Hard.

It is going to be hard to prove a bias crime in the case of the NCAA Women’s Division I Basketball Tournament where the Utah Women’s team was racially abused.
Members of the Utah women’s basketball team have been left “deeply troubled and shaken” by what team officials called “hateful and disturbing” racial abuse ahead of their NCAA tournament opening game.

The team has filed a police report and is now releasing more details of what it says occurred in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on Thursday ahead of a game against South Dakota State in Spokane, Washington, which is about 30 miles away.

According to a statement from Utah Athletics Director Mark Harlan, deputy AD Charmelle Green and women’s basketball coach Lynne Roberts, the team was on its way to dinner when a vehicle drove past and “shouted racial epithets at the group.”

Later, when the team was on its way back from dinner, a vehicle drove slowly past the group, “revving its engine” while the occupants again shouted “racially disparaging words and threats,” the statement said.

It added: “As can be imagined, many students, staff and other members of the traveling party were deeply disturbed and fearful after the incidents, in what should be a safe and enjoyable experience.”

In an interview with CNN affiliate KSL, Green said that the N-word had been shouted at the team on each of the two occasions.

Police have opened an investigation.
Well it will be very, very hard to get past the First Amendment if all they did was yell racial slurs then it will be really hard to prove a crime was committed. But if as the article states, “racially disparaging words and threats,” made the threats then it goes beyond speech and now includes the possibility of violence.

For better or worst, the First Amendment gives wide latitude to what is protected speech. I hope that they can prove that threats were made then criminal charges can be filed.

There was a case at the University of Connecticut where some students as they walked across the parking lots were and yelling racial slurs and they were arrested and thrown out of school. The students won on First Amendment grounds and are now suing the school and police.

Cuckoo Award


Today’s Cuckoo Award does not go to an individual but instead to a group of people who believe that the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse was done by a clandestine organization.

A familiar pattern played out in the hours following Tuesday's bridge collapse in Baltimore: social media influencers and right-wing media figures began spreading conspiracy theories and baseless rumors about the disaster.

[…]

But some large accounts on social media platforms including X, formerly known as Twitter, were quick to suggest otherwise. Andrew Tate, an online influencer with 9 million followers on X who has been indicted on human trafficking and rape charges in Romania, claimed without evidence that that the ship had been "cyber-attacked" in a post viewed 13.4 million times. (The post carries a "Community Note" — the platform's user-generated fact-checking feature — stating that the incident is still being investigated and that his assertion was "speculation.")
Cuckoo, cuckoo!
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has been ordered to pay $1.5 billion to the families of victims of the Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting, which Jones has falsely claimed was a "false flag," amplified Tate's baseless suggestion to his own 2.2 million X followers, saying "A cyber-attack is probable. WW3 has already started."

Researcher Mike Rothschild, who has written books about QAnon and other conspiracy theories, said it has become "standard" for any unexpected event "to be run through a filter of conspiracy theories based on the personal brand of the person spreading the theory."
So today’s Cuckoo Award goes to the conspiracy theorist.
 

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

One Of My Pet Issues

Let’s face it, getting old sure beats the alternative of pushing up daises.
New report outlines problems faced by LGBTQ+ nursing home residents
Bay Area Reporter
By Lou Chibbaro Jr., Washington Blade
March 25, 2024


A recently published academic journal article by two University of Indiana researchers reports on problems faced by LGBTQ+ older adults living in the nation's nursing homes and recommends actions nursing homes should take to ensure LGBTQ+ residents are treated equitably and without bias.

The article, entitled "Postacute Care and Long-Term Care for LGBTQ+ Older Adults," was published November 9 in the peer reviewed journal Clinics In Geriatric Medicine. It is co-authored by geriatric physician Jennifer L. Carnahan, a research scientist with the Regenstrief Institute, which is affiliated with Indiana University's Center for Aging Research and Andrew C. Picket, an elder care researcher and assistant professor at Indiana University's School of Public Health in Bloomington. Carnahan also serves as an assistant professor of medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine.

"Cultivating an inclusive and LGBTQ+ culturally competent nursing home culture means that all staff and clinicians should receive training specific to working with this group and time should be allocated for this to reduce staff burden," the article states.

It points out that while some older LGBTQ+ adults fear being forced into the closet while in a nursing home, "they also simultaneously fear unwanted disclosure of their sexual orientation or gender identity status, and their autonomy should be respected either way."
As a senior trans woman this is one of my concerns. What will happen when you are one trans woman in a long tern care facility with a 100 residents?

I don’t care if the LTC facility is LGBTQ friendly or it takes is one or two MAGAs in the facility to make your life miserable. All it takes are the magic words… It is against my sincerely deeply held religious beliefs that it is my “god given right to discriminate.”
Among the article's recommendations is that when new residents are being admitted to a nursing home, whether for short term or long term, "standard practice should be to ask sexual orientation and gender identity questions of every new resident along with other demographic identifiers." Doing this "normalizes sexual and gender minority status," and can also "help to reduce the invisibility and health disparities" that LGBTQ+ nursing home residents experience.

"For transgender individuals, the personal care received in nursing homes can be supportive, as intended, or traumatic," the article states. When nursing home staff provide assistance to transgender persons unable to care for themselves, "such as toileting or bathing, they may become newly aware of a resident's transgender status," the article says, adding, "If staff are not prepared for such an unintentional outing and how to react in a supportive manner, they may demonstrate microaggressions." That type of biased reaction can be psychologically harmful for a transgender resident, the report states.
Here is another thought, I was diagnosed with “Gender Dysphoria,” 302.85 (F64. 9). Now if you are in a LTC facility and one of the residents asked a worker at the LTC facility, “Is that one of the trans people?” and the employee answers yes. You just won a million dollars!  Hold it wait… as far as I know when you go into a LTC you sign a bunch of papers and one of those forms states that you agree to binding arbitration! Strike that winning a million dollars, the arbitrator rules yes, they did violate HIPAA but rules that the employee was at fault not the LTC… sorry no judgment in your favor.
The article points to a 2018 survey conducted by AARP, which advocates for people over the age of 50, that found most LGBTQ+ older adults, when considering entering a nursing home, "anticipate neglect, abuse, refusal of services, harassment, and being forced back into the closet."

The article says this fear of abuse and stigmatization may be related to older LGBTQ+ adults' experiencing anti-LGBTQ+ bias in their younger years.

"Health care workers across disciplines are not well trained in care for LGBTQ+ older adults," the article says. "Stereotypes and inadequate knowledge of the LGBTQ+ population are not uncommon among those who care for older adults," it says. And it says LGBTQ+ residents in nursing homes may also face stigmatization from other residents.

There are efforts around the country to make LTC and senior center aware of the needs for culture training, but in most of the Republican states that effort is being snuffed.

So not only are the Republicans going after youth LGBTQ+ programs but they going after senior programs also.
 

 
This week is National LGBTQ+ Health Awareness Week, I bet you didn’t know that. I sure didn’t.

National LGBTQIA+ Health Awareness Week
By One Colorado
March 21, 2024


What is National LGBTQIA+ Health Awareness Week?

National LGBTQIA+ Health Awareness Week takes place annually in the third week of March. This initiative focuses on enhancing accessible, affirming, and inclusive healthcare for LGBTQ+ communities, highlighting the significance of collective action towards healthcare equity. National LGBTQ Health Awareness Week was established in 2003 by the National Coalition for LGBTQ Health, a leading organization dedicated to improving the health and well-being of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community through advocacy, education, and research.

[…]

Older Adults

Older adults face issues of mistreatment by health care, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, social isolation and lack of resources. Despite paving the way for LGBTQ+ rights, older adults are often not given the appreciation or recognition as the elders that have built our community to what it is today. As there is still much that needs to be done, we must strive to expand access to LGBTQ+ inclusive housing, gender affirming care, and services that promote healthy aging. One Colorado partners with SAGE, the national advocacy and services organization for LGBTQ+ elders, to stay informed on issues affecting LGBTQ+ older adults and ensure that legislation is inclusive of all community members regardless of age.

There Are No Bias Crimes!

So why do we need laws? Well that is the thinking of the Idaho Republicans.
If someone robs you, is that ever considered a love crime?  If someone punches you in the face, is that a sign the guy is a good neighbor?  If someone poisons your dog, is that a sign they care?

I’ve never been a fan of hate crime laws.  If you beat someone up, it’s against the law.  No matter their ancestry, lifestyle preference, or religion.  Hate crime laws are redundant.  They’re used to increase sentences or leverage for guilty pleas.

A pair of Idaho Legislators would like to change some of that, and liberal media isn’t happy.  The story I saw is behind a paywall at the Idaho Statesman.  First, I know the Statesman needs to make a profit to keep the lights on.  The initial offer for a subscription is a good deal.  Later, you’ll pay through the nose for a vastly depleted product.

But I digress.  Liberal media sees hostiles everywhere on the American right.  Put on a MAGA hat and you’re an immediate villain looking to exercise your violent instincts anywhere on the streets.  So, the media, like fellow travelers in the Democrat Party want you controlled.  Pile up some more rules.  Create etiquette laws and then use those to silence dissent.  The warped wretches in American newsrooms don’t plan to listen to any arguments against their position.  In their minds, they see themselves surrounded by enemies, and opposition to hate crimes legislation tags you as a bad guy.
Lets see what made the news headline from Idaho this weekend?
A racial attack in North Idaho is an infuriating reminder that Idaho still has much more work to do to purge ourselves of the hateful scourge of white supremacy and racism.

The Utah women’s basketball team was playing in Spokane for the NCAA Tournament but was staying in a hotel in Coeur d’Alene because of a lack of hotel rooms in Spokane, according to KSL.com, which first reported the story.

While the basketball team, the band and the cheerleading team were walking to a restaurant Thursday night, a white truck got near the team and revved its engine, and its occupants then yelled the N-word toward the team before speeding off, according to KSL.

“We all just were in shock, and we looked at each other like, did we just hear that? … Everybody was in shock — our cheerleaders, our students that were in that area that heard it clearly were just frozen,” Utah deputy athletics director Charmelle Green, who is Black, told KSL.com. “We kept walking, just shaking our heads, like I can’t believe that.”

But that wasn’t the end of it.

Two hours later, after dinner, as they left the restaurant, two trucks showed up and revved their engines and their occupants yelled the N-word again.

It’s like a bad scene out of a cliche movie about racism in the segregated South in the 1950s.

But here it is happening in real life in Idaho in 2024.
Naw, they don’t need a fascist bias crime law in Idaho.

Going back to last November…
Man sentenced for federal hate crimes against Idaho LGBTQ+ community
Matthew Lehigh was first arrested in October 2022 after Boise police received reports of him yelling threats, slurs
Idaho Capital Sun
BY: MIA MALDONADO
NOVEMBER 2, 2023


Almost a year ago, Brett Perry and John Michael Schert came to their North End home to discover that their pride flag outside had been burned. On Thursday, the couple saw the perpetrator, Matthew Lehigh, sentenced to prison on federal hate crime charges.

The conviction marks the second time an anti-LGBTQ+ hate crime has ever been brought to court and prosecuted in Idaho, according to District of Idaho spokesperson Cassandra Fulghum.

Lehigh, 32, was first arrested in Oct. 2022 after Boise police received reports of him yelling threats, anti-LGBTQ+ slurs and driving his car toward people. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Lehigh later admitted also to setting fire to the pride flag in the North End, breaking several windows at an LGBTQ+ community building, and punching a grocery store customer after calling him a slur.

Local authorities could not pursue Lehigh’s actions as a hate crime, because the Idaho Human Rights Act does not protect people based on sexual orientation or gender identity. But in January, the U.S. Department of Justice stepped in and indicted Lehigh on federal hate crime charges.

At a federal courthouse in Boise Thursday, federal Judge B. Lynn Winmill sentenced Lehigh to federal prison for 37 months. Winmill also ordered Lehigh to pay $200 in court fees and $7,000 in restitution to victims.

Following his prison sentence, Lehigh will be placed under three years of supervised release.
Idaho doesn’t need any bias crime laws, there are no hate crimes there!

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Your Voucher Please!

Those of you who follow my blog know that I am against student vouchers, as more states use them our public schools are feeling the pinch. Take this with a grain of salt but there is some truth here.
School vouchers are being used mainly by families whose children are already in private school—and state budgets are being drained as a result.
NEA
By: Tim Walker, Senior Writer
February 2, 2024


Key Takeaways:
  • Since the enactment of universal school voucher programs, states are struggling with the programs’ cost and lack of transparency and accountability.
  • Overwhelmingly, school vouchers are being used by families with children already in private school to subsidize their tuition.
  • Voucher programs’ skyrocketing costs will divert funding not only from public schools, but also other critical public services.
In December 2022, Arizona became the first state in the nation to enact a universal school voucher program. The Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA), as it is called, provides roughly $7,000 of taxpayer dollars per child to cover a wide array of broadly defined “educational expenses,” including private school tuition, home-schooling, and other private expenses—with very few strings, if any, attached.  

Enrollment has skyrocketed, quickly surpassing 70,000 students by the beginning of 2024. 

While it may still be growing, Arizona’s ESA voucher program is also a fiasco. All the promises made over the past year by the law’s most zealous supporters have run aground amid reports detailing the program’s astronomical cost and lax accountability. Voucher laws generally do not require any sort of disclosure from private schools about their finances, how they operate, or how they measure student achievement. Arizona’s is one of the least accountable voucher programs in the nation.
I am totally against vouchers because it siphons funds from public education, because they cherry pick the best, and because they can discriminate and that is what makes this a trans issue, they can discriminate against us with impunity. 
For school privatization advocates, the lack of oversight and other failings are a feature, not a bug.  

“These lawmakers don’t care about the strain on the budget or what this does to our schools and our communities,” says Michael McGowan, a high school teacher in Glendale. “It’s just an attack on public education. Taking money out of the system, draining resources, weakening our schools— that’s the point.” 
I like the way Connecticut does it with magnet schools, private companies run what I call specialty, that have schools for the arts, sciences, etc. and they are open to all students. Some of the funding however does go to religious schools that can discriminate.
When it was being debated, educators and community organizations urged opposition to the program. They warned that far from serving lower income families, vouchers would serve private school families, siphon valuable funds from public schools, and disrupt and destabilize the state budget. 

All of that, and more, has happened across the state.   
Those that were already sending their children to private schools continued sending them but with lower tuition. Meanwhile public schools funding went down with middle to lower income students. 
This disturbing trend can be seen in other states that have enacted sweeping voucher laws. When Ohio expanded access to its "EdChoice" voucher program in 2020, the percentage of participating students who were already enrolled in private school jumped from 7 percent in 2019 to 55 percent in 2023. And new data from the Iowa Department of Education reveal that two-thirds of students in that state who received a voucher were, again, already enrolled in private school, and only about 13% of recipients had ever previously attended a public school.
This is just a subsidy for the rich while screwing the pour and at the same time cutting the safety net of WIC, SNAP, and other social programs.

The Republicans have cut the top income level brackets and putting the tax burden on the middle and low income workers.

Whoa! Our Body Strength Really Makes A Difference In This Sport!

We are always getting called out in any sports even in the sport of darts! Now there is a sport that just doesn’t make any sense to have men and women’s teams, but…
Trans darts player speaks out amid abuse over event win: ‘I am also a human being’
Transgender darts player Noa-Lynn van Leuven is facing abuse online after winning a professional women’s series event, beating the world number one along the way.
The Pink News
By Sophie Perry
March 25, 2024


Having beaten Beau Graves in the quarter finals of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) event, Dutch player Noa-Lynn van Leuven, 27, went on to triumph over Ireland’s Katie Sheldon in the final in Wigan on Saturday (23 March), to take home the £2,000 prize.

Leuven’s 5-2 victory comes a week after she made history by becoming the first trans player to win a PDC tour event, on the Challenge Tour in Germany – an event open to both men and women.

But her win has been followed by a torrent of transphobic abuse on social media, including misgendering Leuven and claiming she is “only” trans to win darts titles.

[…]

In sports, there should be an equal and fair playing field. I hope with all my heart and for all women in sports that people come to their senses.”
Okay, why is there a male and female teams in darts? It seems to me that darts do not require physical strength but rather hand eye coordination.
She waited three of four years after transitioning to get back to playing darts, she said.

“I was playing darts for nine years and I was missing something in life, then I started playing again. I missed the game, I missed the people.”
So it seems to me that the only reason why that are a men’s and women’s dart teams is so they can hand out two trophies.

Top End Sports writes,
There are many other sports in which skill is predominantly the main factor of success, which you can realistically see women being competitive with the men. Sports such as darts, archery, shooting, auto-racing and tenpin bowling could potentially have women competing at the elite level against the men, however it is not often the case. This is because there are other factors other than physiology and skill which determine the success of women on the sporting field. The lack of opportunity and encouragement of women to play sport in many parts of the world results in fewer women playing sport, resulting in a smaller talent pool and therefore less chance of women being successful.
STOP Right There! Did you catch, “Sports such as darts, archery, shooting…” it seems that there is no problem with women competing in men’s sport. That skill is a major factors and not physiology.
Over the years, several women have taken on the men at their own game, with varying success. At a swimming meet in 1922, female backstroker Sybil Bauer finished the 440-yard event in a time of 6:24.8, which was about four seconds ahead of the then men's world record mark. In more recent times, Danica Patrick in auto racing and Kelly Kulick on the Professional Bowlers Association tour have shown that women can compete and win on an individual basis.
But as soon a trans woman completes all the conservatives get up in a tizzy.
 
Major League Baseball allows men and women to play in MLB! The Baseball Hall of Fame writes.
For four years, the professional baseball world got to experience something that it had rarely seen before: A woman on the diamond.

From 1997-2000, Ila Borders pitched in 52 minor league baseball games with four different teams, finishing with a 2-4 record and 6.75 ERA.
A barrier was broken! With no jumping up and down by the conservatives. Can you imagine if it was a trans woman who did that?

The Bleacher Report has an article, 20 Great Women Who Can Play with the Men.
    WNBA star Candace Parker plays forward for the Los Angeles Sparks, but she has some experience competing with the boys.

    Two years after becoming the first girl in Illinois to dunk a basketball in a high school game, Parker won the 2004 McDonald's High School All-American dunk contest in Oklahoma City, competing against some of the top male athletes in the country.

[…]

    In 2006, Alaskan high school sophomore Michaela Hutchison became the first girl in the country to win a state wrestling title while competing against boys.

    Hutchison won the 103-pound weight class at the state championship and entered the tournament ranked No. 1 in her weight class.
Now here is a sport that shouldn’t have a men and women’s division… Competitive eating!
    Sonya Thomas is a competitive eater who holds dozens of world records and is better known by her nickname, The Black Widow. Don't let her 98-pound frame fool you, Thomas is ranked No. 6 in the world.

    In 2011, Thomas won the U.S. Chicken Wing Eating Championship in Buffalo, N.Y. She ate 183 chicken wings in 12 minutes—beating her previous world record mark set a year earlier.

[…]

    Dutch Muay Thai fighter Germaine De Randamie began competing in Strikeforce in 2011 and is an up-and-coming talent in MMA.

    De Randamie is best known for her 2007 fight with Belgian actor Tom Waes, who had agreed to fight her after just three months of training. He was knocked out in the first round.
Hey we don’t want any trans women racing… but why? If a woman can win in the men’s division why have a men’s and women’s division?
    In May 2011, Canadian golfer Isabelle Beisiegel became the first female golfer in history to earn a playing card on the men's professional tour.

    Several women, including Annika Sorestam and Michelle Wie, have played in individual events in recent years—but Beisiegel's achievement sets her apart from them.
Question: if men and women can compete on the same team and women can win along side of men, why segregate teams into men’s and women’s team?

This is nothing more than an attempt to stir up anomsity against the trans community.