Kathy Winter, chair of the Osceola County Democratic Party, released a statement slamming state Rep. Josh Turek’s ad declaring that he was against trans inclusion in sports and against “taxpayers paying for sex changes.”
“At a time of unprecedented hate and bigotry being directed at transgender Iowans, I cannot in good [conscience] vote for a man who is promising to make their lives worse,” said Winter, as reported by The Washington Post.
Winter also said she had already voted by the time the ad came out, but did not vote in the Senate race due to prior anti-trans statements from Turek. During a debate last month, he said he does “not believe that biological males should compete in female sports and this is something that has already been decided in Iowa,” referring to the state’s trans sports ban, passed in 2022.
“Dude could be talking about affordability, or data centers, or curbing executive power, or literally anything else,” one trans person on X responded. “But nah, go ahead, give legitimacy to the far-rights bullst boogeyman nonsense. Fking moron, stooping to their level.”
It drives me fucking nuts that so much of the hate directed at trans people is driven by sports. Sports! It's a FUCKING GAME! It's like saying people with hair shorter than 2 inches shouldn't be allowed to play Minecraft. You could even argue that short hair gives them an advantage by not obstructing their eyes or some shit: and even taking that (bullshit) argument at face value IT'S STILL A FUCKING GAME!
Human rights > games
Why is this such a controversial take??
Like, their other boogeyman arguments are just as bullshit, but at least those take the effort to poke at something that sounds important like keeping perverts out of restrooms... I mean, until you fire off the six or so neurons it takes to see past that bullshit veneer and realize it's another example of 'the cruelty is the point' and there's not some horde of trans people staking out public restrooms to go rape that little school girl from the hate ads... but the folks who are too stupid to question those hate ads, I can at least see that they're being manipulated by being tricked into thinking they're helping the girl from the hate ads.
But like... "tRanS pEoPLe cAn tHroW a bAll a litTlE biT fURthEr!!" THAT'S NOT A FUCKIN REASON TO TAKE THEIR RIGHTS AWAY! None of that shit is a fuckin reason to take their rights away. ...but god damn, the sports thing is the most knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing, neanderthal-fucking, stupid argument I've ever heard.
Fuck you, Turek.