Florida Bill Passes House, Allows Genital Inspection for Schools

[tstorm823]

a) The bill specifically states that an athlete must prove they were assigned female at birth.
b) The "typical testosterone range" for a healthy teenage girl can be higher than that of many boys of the same age. Again, the bodies of adolescents are different from those of adults.
c) A significant number of women, for various reasons will not fall into the "typical testosterone range". There are very common medical conditions which can affect the hormone balance in the body of a woman or girl who was nonetheless assigned female at birth.

Again, this is just more evidence that the bill was written and supported by people who either lacked even the most basic, 5 seconds on wikipedia understanding of endocrinology, or more likely just didn't care, because it seems to be written on the assumption that you can determine someone's assigned sex at birth from a single hormone test, and (particularly with children) you can't.

https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2021/1475/BillText/c1/PDF

Read the bill before telling me what it says. It doesn't say the words "prove", "assigned", or "birth" at all. It puts no requirement at all on the students to do anything themselves, it is their healthcare providers that are expected to designate biological sex during routine sports physicals. It was written very obviously by people who understand you can't always easily determine sex, because they offered 3 different methods of doing so: genitals, chromosomes, and/or hormone levels. Any one of the three is sufficient. They wrote the bill so that any person without a penis OR without a y-chromosome OR with appropriately low levels of testosterone qualifies as biologically female.

Don't believe the lying headlines. Read the bill, and then come back and make your criticisms. I'm sure you'll still have criticisms, but let them be based on what's actually happening, and not on the lies the media is selling you.

I think you need to consider that there are other ways of being invasive and shaming than demanding someone has their genitals examined.

I think you need to consider reading the bill before writing about it. Is "your doctor privately determines your eligibility before the sports season even starts" invasive and shaming? To guide your answer, we already do that, it's the point of a sports physical, and in the instance a child isn't physically healthy enough to pass a sports physical, nobody else ever knows it happened to shame them for it.

 

[Seanchaidh]

I think you need to consider reading the bill before writing about it. Is "your doctor privately determines your eligibility before the sports season even starts" invasive and shaming?

Yes, actually.

 

[Trunkage]

'I cant believe a woman could perform that well in sports. She must be a man. Quick get the doctor.' If this literally didn't happen in the Olympics on a international stage before, I would find this whole thing humorously stupid

 

[Satinavian]

It totally did happen repeatedly.

Especially GDR athletes were subjected to that quite a lot. Not entirely unreasonably as the GDR also did hormone therapy for better performance and quite a number of those former female star athletes now live as male because that is what they can pass as easier.

 

[Gordon_4]

It totally did happen repeatedly.

Especially GDR athletes were subjected to that quite a lot. Not entirely unreasonably as the GDR also did hormone therapy for better performance and quite a number of those former female star athletes now live as male because that is what they can pass as easier.

Not exactly comparable situations, to be absolutely fair

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Does anyone debating in this thread actually have daughters, let alone children?

 

[Avnger]

Does anyone debating in this thread actually have daughters, let alone children?

Do you? Do the all people who passed the bill? Do all the lawmakers who debated it? Do all the supporters of it? Do all the people who will enforce it? Does any of this matter other than being a poor attempt to deflect?

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Let's take this same question and turn it around:

Are you a trans woman, let alone transgender? If not, what gives you the right to comment on the issue? What gives people who made the law the right if they aren't?

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And because I'm honestly curious:

Are you incapable of empathizing with a situation you've never personally experienced? Are you assuming others are similarly incapable?

 

[Buyetyen]

Does anyone debating in this thread actually have daughters, let alone children?

Enlighten me: what is the allegedly historical position you're looking at this from?

 

[Agema]

I think you need to consider reading the bill before writing about it.

What makes you think I haven't?

I know well enough that innocuous-looking statements on statutes can have toxic motivations, and implications and consequences far beyond the apparent meaning. I think "read the bill!" is thus not quite as useful as you claim.

I cannot help but get the feeling the intent of the statute is to force little kids into taking tests where they are officially designated as girls or boys. Not because it's actually useful, thoughtful or respects the difficulties of people who think their gender might not be the same as their assigned sex, but because transphobes want to make their lives more annoying. Much like the same sorts of people passed laws to make women seeking abortions jump through hoops designed to inconvenience, scare and shame them into not having an abortion.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Enlighten me: what is the allegedly historical position you're looking at this from?

Maybe since we can't agree on what must be done the only option forward that avoids a violent conflict is to have these kind of decisions be decided by people as close to those effected as possible. Maybe Florida having this law should be looked at as a Florida decision made by people directly effected by it. Just as any other state like California , for example, should be allowed to go the other direction.

If two people have a choice of two roads to go down and both want a different road and refuse to come to an agreement then either they can both go their separate ways or they can try to use force to make one of them go the way they don't want to.

 

[Buyetyen]

Maybe since we can't agree on what must be done the only option forward that avoids a violent conflict is to have these kind of decisions be decided by people as close to those effected as possible.

So actual trans people then? I'm kidding, I know you weren't thinking of them.

Maybe Florida having this law should be looked at as a Florida decision made by people directly effected by it. Just as any other state like California , for example, should be allowed to go the other direction.

If two people have a choice of two roads to go down and both want a different road and refuse to come to an agreement then either they can both go their separate ways or they can try to use force to make one of them go the way they don't want to.

This is not a historical perspective, this is just some platitudes that sound good but don't have any substantive bearing on the topic at hand.

 

[Kwak]

Why was this such a pressing issue that needed legislation in the first place? What real world cases spurred the apparent concern?

 

[Avnger]

Why was this such a pressing issue that needed legislation in the first place? What real world cases spurred the apparent concern?

If the fires of fear and hatred aren't regularly fed, the peasants might take stock of the situation in which they live and ask why they are stuck in the dirt while their rulers shit on golden toilets.

 

[Trunkage]

Does anyone debating in this thread actually have daughters, let alone children?

Yep

 

[tstorm823]

What makes you think I haven't?

I know well enough that innocuous-looking statements on statutes can have toxic motivations, and implications and consequences far beyond the apparent meaning. I think "read the bill!" is thus not quite as useful as you claim.

I cannot help but get the feeling the intent of the statute is to force little kids into taking tests where they are officially designated as girls or boys. Not because it's actually useful, thoughtful or respects the difficulties of people who think their gender might not be the same as their assigned sex, but because transphobes want to make their lives more annoying. Much like the same sorts of people passed laws to make women seeking abortions jump through hoops designed to inconvenience, scare and shame them into not having an abortion.

Ah, forcing children in sports to get sports physicals that they were already getting. What horrifying tests they have pushed these innocent children into.

 

[Avnger]

Ah, forcing children in sports to get sports physicals that they were already getting. What horrifying tests they have pushed these innocent children into.

Not exactly sure what kind of sports physicals you got as a child, but genital inspections were not a regular part of mine....

In all seriousness, I'd recommend reaching out for professional mental health services if that was the case. From personal experience, I know that type of trauma leaves marks even if they're "dormant" for years.

 

[Trunkage]

Ah, forcing children in sports to get sports physicals that they were already getting. What horrifying tests they have pushed these innocent children into.

Does America force doctors physicals onto kids?

Does America not have medical confidentiality?

 

[Avnger]

Does America force doctors physicals onto kids?

Does America not have medical confidentiality?

If you want to play sports, yes. It's basically just a checkup to ensure you're not going to drop dead on the field or court for unknown reasons. Medical confidentiality just means the school/organization can't force your doctor to give them protected health information; they can certainly say "if you don't give it to us, you can't participate in this optional activity" though.

The cynic is me says that a large part of requiring them is to lower insurance payments for the school/org.

Sports Physicals (for Teens) - Nemours KidsHealth

Just as professional sports stars need medical care to keep them playing their best, so do student athletes. That's why it's important to get a sports physical.

kidshealth.org

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Maybe since we can't agree on what must be done the only option forward that avoids a violent conflict is to have these kind of decisions be decided by people as close to those effected as possible. Maybe Florida having this law should be looked at as a Florida decision made by people directly effected by it. Just as any other state like California , for example, should be allowed to go the other direction.

If two people have a choice of two roads to go down and both want a different road and refuse to come to an agreement then either they can both go their separate ways or they can try to use force to make one of them go the way they don't want to.

So, the sports organizations overseeing said school sports? Who tend to allow trans athletes?

No, wait, you mean the next level up, the State legislatures. You never *actually* mean the people as close to those effected.

There's overlapping fields of jurisdiction going on. Most of them say that in high school sports allowing participation is more important that strict competitive fairness. When you get to where competition *matters*, most involved organizations make allowances for appropriate levels of HRT based on the advice of the relevant sports doctors and endocrinologists.

But that means trans people get to play sports, so now state legislatures need to get involved.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Why was this such a pressing issue that needed legislation in the first place? What real world cases spurred the apparent concern?

A kid in Connecticut got third instead of second and couldn't handle it.

Oh, and a lady cyclist only beat their trans competitor 10 out of 12 times instead of going 12 for 12.

And one time, somebody got injured in MMA