A few days ago, the Ohio Republicans passed
a change to state law that was snuck in at the last minute, under the guise of “protecting” girls sports.
This law allows ANYONE to dispute the sex of an athlete on a school team.
There are no safeguards in place to ensure that this is not used maliciously.
Girls who do not look feminine enough, girls of color, girls who are “too good” are likely to be the biggest targets.
But any girl could be targeted. Maybe someone doesn’t like her parents or maybe someone wants to make sure the opposing team doesn’t have enough eligible players.
So what does a girl have to do to prove she is a girl?
First, the physician has to examine the girl’s external and internal reproductive anatomy.
I have to emphasize that this will impact girls as young as 5th or 6th grade, ~10-11 years old. A year or two older than my daughter.
Step one to proving your correct sex is female:
A doctor will need to spread open your labia and examine the size of your clitoris. A clitoris that is “too large” could be a sign that you are intersex and not female enough for sports.
Step two to proving your correct sex is female:
A doctor will then insert one or two gloved fingers inside your vagina, while pressing against your abdomen with their other hand, so they can feel your uterus and ovaries.
This will likely be quite painful for these young girls, and extremely traumatic.
There is no medical reason to do a pelvic exam on girls this young, absent any signs of a problem.
This is sexual assault and will traumatize these girls. That is by design.
This part of the exam would probably be covered by insurance, depending on how it is billed. But these next two steps would likely not be covered for most people.
Step three to proving your correct sex is female:
Your blood will be drawn and your testosterone levels measured.
How much testosterone is too much? Unclear.
Does having “high T” give girls an advantage? No, not always. But this bill leaves no room for nuance.
Step four to proving your correct sex is female:
Your blood will also be tested to see if you are XX or XY.
Except not everyone is XX or XY and there are XY women who have no advantage in sports because of the nuances of their genetics, but that won’t matter here.
Any athlete who suspects they were “harmed” by an athlete who lied about their sex can sue that school district. If that athlete’s parents are unwilling to have their daughter sexually assaulted, or cannot afford the testing, the district will have to pay $$ to the accuser.
So from an administrative standpoint, you basically have to require that all female athletes do this testing in order to play interscholastic sports.
Otherwise your district is in danger of having to forfeit games and losing litigation if you don’t have this paperwork up front.
Interscholastic sports in Ohio will only be accessible to girls whose parents are willing to subject them to sexual assault and very expensive and unnecessary bloodwork.
Congrats to everyone trying to “save” women’s sports from your trans athlete boogeymen.
Is winning the most important part of high school sports?
Because setting aside the incredible trauma and expense caused by this bill, at the end of the day, the message is that winning is what matters the most.
That’s not the lesson I want my daughter to learn from sports.
