Valuing all members of our society
The greatness of a nation can be judged by how it treats its weakest member.
— Mahatma Ghandi
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Social Justice and Equal Rights are priorities of the League of Women Voters.
If you’ve studied the history of school desegregation in the American South — before those history books were banned, rewritten, or withdrawn for teaching so-called “divisive concepts” — you may recall a photograph from 1960 depicting a tiny six-year-old Black girl walking to her new school surrounded by federal marshals for protection. Marshals were necessary because mobs of enraged, shouting, spitting white folks assembled each day just to prevent this little girl from going to that school.
Of course, the little Black girl was Ruby Bridges, and her lonely, brave walk to integrate her elementary school has become iconic in our checkered history of civil rights.
Today, it would be (mostly) inconceivable for a vulnerable child to be treated as Ruby was treated simply because of the color of her skin. At least, it would no longer require federal law enforcement intervention. Minimally, people who still feel that way know (for the most part) to keep their bigotry to themselves.
Yet, it has become acceptable — defensible, even legal — to treat transgender children as something less than human. Laws and policies proscribe what they can do, where they can go in their schools, what activities are open to them.
Have we replaced our fixation on color with a fixation on genitalia? Or, do we (and, especially, the politicians representing us) just need someone to hate? Why do they pick a group so small and so vulnerable who cannot fight back?
We must ask why. Why would any politician — anyone aspiring to public service, who takes an oath to the Constitution replete with rights and guarantees of equal protection under law — make it their goal to harm children?
It is one thing not to understand how a baby can be born with external (or internal) parts that appear at birth to indicate one sex but later on turn out not to fit. Many of us come from a culture that never explored or explained such things.
But we all have the ability to learn new things. Indeed, we have the duty to learn. Just as Southerners (and others) had to learn that Ruby Bridges had the same right to an education as her white peers. We’ve been there and done that. Ignorance or tradition cannot continue to be the basis for denying any person’s rights and existence.
However, that’s exactly what is happening with trans children in states like West Virginia. With a disproportionate focus on denying rights to trans girls.
It is inexplicable. Trans children are used as political footballs, for fear-mongering. They are regulated ostensibly to keep other children “safe,” while making them unsafe.
Trans children who want to participate in sports are deemed to have unfair advantages, even though not every trans child is going to be “better.” And so what if they were? K-12 sports have many purposes. Winning is a minor one. There, we said it! Winning is not the only thing. Other purposes include learning to be part of a team, learning to be a good sport, learning to lose and win with equanimity, learning to work in a group to achieve a common goal — all more important than “winning.” These purposes are more important because they are intrinsically valuable and provide durable lessons for lifelong success.
Need we remind you, only the tiniest fraction of athletes becomes the most elite destined for greatness, however short lived? Is it really worth excluding every trans child who wants to participate — to play — for fear that they will somehow sully the field for the elite? Anyone who has endured the humiliation of being picked last for a team should recognize the temporary harm this can do. Laws that take away rights do more than that: they harm an already vulnerable group permanently.
Obviously, some will disagree with any notion of parallels between race and gender discrimination. But why should we sanction bullying or hatred of any vulnerable group of children?
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