If the following reads slightly familiar, my sincerest apologizes. This originally started off as a Facebook post on my public page, but I wanted to expand on it slightly and share it with those that follow me, but not on Facebook.
The Sports Argument That Collapses on Contact
Conservatives never seem to tire of targeting transgender people—especially trans women. They do it under the guise of “protecting fairness,” “saving women’s sports,” or “upholding biology.” But scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find the same old mix of patriarchy, misogyny, and a deep unease with gender and sexuality that isn’t theirs to control.
I often ask a simple question that cuts right through the noise: What sports team should a 15-year-old transgender boy on hormone replacement therapy play for? If you believe the rhetoric about “biological advantage,” what’s your answer? Should he be forced onto the girls’ team, even though his body is masculinizing? Or should he be on the boys’ team, where his identity and transition are respected?
The truth is, their arguments collapse as soon as they’re pressed. Put a trans boy into their thought experiment, and the contradictions implode. Because, of course, it was never about “fairness” or “biology.” It’s about exclusion.
What They Really Want: Segregation and Erasure
And when you challenge them directly, the responses are painfully predictable: silence, deflection, or the admission that they never actually cared about the science. What they want—what they’ve always wanted—is segregation. They want us barred from sports, from schools, from bathrooms, from hospitals, from public space itself. That’s the universal truth of transphobia—and of bigotry more broadly. Hate is never selective. It expands.
The Bathroom Reality for Trans Kids and Adults
Which bathroom should Ben use? I believe he should use the men’s bathroom, but conservatives in Canada and the United States might expect him to use the women’s bathroom. Can you imagine the consequences if Ben followed the many state and county laws that require individuals to use the restroom corresponding to the gender assigned at birth? His safety would be in serious jeopardy if he were seen entering or leaving a women’s bathroom. This could lead to violence, police involvement, even an invasive demand for his medical records—so much for small government, personal privacy, and liberty.
And that’s not just hypothetical. It’s my reality, too. Nearly half of U.S. states already mandate that trans people use bathrooms according to the sex on their birth certificate, and at least three Canadian provinces are moving toward the same. If I were forced to walk into a men’s bathroom, I would not be safe. Everyone in that room would feel uncomfortable, and the risk of assault or confrontation would be high. Conservatives know this, which is why they never frame the debate around women like me—trans women who have been on hormones for years or decades, who live and are recognized as women, many of whom have had surgery. Instead, they conjure up a caricature: a ‘hulking man with a beard and a gut, barging into women’s spaces.‘ That image serves a purpose—it creates a sinister scene in their imaginations, one that plays well in the echo chambers of Christian conservatism. But it has nothing to do with the reality of who we are. So let’s ask the real question: how safe is an eighteen-year-old trans girl in a bathroom full of beered-up bigots? Where is she safer? And just as importantly—who exactly is going to police this? Conservatives never have an answer. They only have disingenuous questions and blind rage.
When Hate Comes From Within the Family
Most of the people who follow my work already understand this. Many of you are allies in your own ways, and I’m grateful for that. But the sad reality is that there are still people—even in my own family—who would be content if trans people simply vanished.
A few years before my mother’s death, she discovered an extended family she never knew she had—including a half-brother. He was a gay man living in South Africa, a country still scarred by apartheid, gender-based violence, and a culture of intolerance. Despite his own marginalization, he regularly expressed extreme racism and subtle but persistent transphobia.
He was one of the people I had in mind when I first posed my “hypothetical” question about trans kids and sports. In fact, I once asked him directly. And just as I expected, he cycled through every predictable stage: refusing to answer, stalling, pivoting to right-wing talking points, admitting he’d never studied the science, and finally declaring that trans people are just “gay with mother issues.”
That’s the thing about bigotry: oppression doesn’t always teach empathy. Sometimes it teaches resentment. Sometimes it convinces people that as long as they aren’t at the very bottom, they can feel secure. And so racism begets racism, sexism begets sexism, homophobia begets transphobia.
Years ago, I called him out—on his racism, his hypocrisy, his contradictions, his smallness. I told him what I believed to be true: that he was a petty, uneducated, pathetic man. I won’t abide hate in my life, and I refuse to give space to people who see me as “lesser.” No one should.
The Bigger Picture: What Kind of Society Do We Want?
Because this isn’t just about trans people and sports. It isn’t even just about trans rights. It’s about the kind of society we live in and the kind of future we want. Do we want one where fear and exclusion dictate who gets to belong? Or one where every kid—cis, trans, queer, straight—can play on a team, walk into a classroom, or live in their community without being treated like a threat?
That’s the real choice. And neutrality, silence, or “staying out of politics” is just another way of siding with hate. The fight against transphobia is the fight against authoritarianism and exclusion itself.
For me, the answer is clear. And I hope, for all of us, it will be too.
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