this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2025
968 points (97.7% liked)
Not The Onion
18448 readers
2748 users here now
Welcome
We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!
The Rules
Posts must be:
- Links to news stories from...
- ...credible sources, with...
- ...their original headlines, that...
- ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”
Please also avoid duplicates.
Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.
And that’s basically it!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It really sounds like somebody in the Queen Creek School District wanted to make a political issue out of him. Presumably, as cited in the article, the state law they pointed to enacted in 2022, which mandates that school sports teams must be designated “based on the biological sex of the students who participate” in the sport. It doesn't matter where you are in the political aisle, it's pretty shameless to exploit this politically, even if it's just so they can go "look at how senseless this law is!" by making an issue out of its strictest interpretation.
His biological sex is female. At least, according to the laws that transphobes have written. The problem with the term "biological sex" is that it's far more complicated than conservatives pretend.
For example, I'm a trans woman myself. If I had been born with an (age appropriate) of the body I have now, I would have been assigned female at birth. And according to all these new Jim Crow laws, I would be required to use the female facilities and accommodations, literally having the exact same body I do now.
You can try to claim that sex is chromosomes, but a biologist would laugh in your face. There is so much variance to human biological development that chromosomes don't begin to fully describe natal biological sex. And even if you ignored all that and went with chromosomes anyway? You could just genetically test everyone. But then conservative voters would hate that. The purpose of these laws is to destroy trans people, not to inconvenience cis people. And legislators don't want to force white suburban parents to pay $2000 for chromosome testing whenever their kid wants to join a sports team.
What else could they use? They could use hormones. A very good argument can be made that hormones simply are a person's biological sex. Hormones are what after all causes someone to actually develop a penis or vagina in the first place. So why not use a cheap blood test and assign sports based on hormones? Well, again, the purpose of the law is to destroy trans people. And it's pretty easy to alter your hormones. Conservatives need rigid, unalterable, lifelong sex categories. Without those, they wouldn't be able to justify forcing women to be second class citizens.
What else? You could use physical features. You could have a coach visually inspect the genitals of every student who signs up for a team, but that has obvious problems. The coaching profession already is a magnet for pedophiles. Plus, again, the purpose of the law is to destroy trans people, not inconvenience cis people. And no parents wants the coach looking at their kid's junk.
That's the problem with laws like this. That's what trans people have been shouting from the rooftops for years, but we've been ignored. The concept of "biological sex" is hopelessly vague. The use of the term is just a way of putting up a "no tr*nnies allowed" sign while attempting to be legally defensible. It's completely unworkable as a tool of assigning sports teams or public accomodations. So instead, the laws were written to use the only tool available: birth certificates. Legally speaking, in Republican states, the sex on your birth certificate IS your biological sex. Your actual genetics, gonads, hormones, etc are completely irrelevant. If your original birth certificate says F, you are female, forever. Your actual biology is irrelevant, you are biologically female, legally speaking.
So no, this isn't just some cruel political statement. This is the law being implemented exactly the way it was written. Trans people warned folks that any attempt to legislate trans people out of existence would have numerous knock-on effects for cis people. But in these states, they were too excited about the possibility of getting to destroy a few trans folks to worry about whatever those trans folks were screeching about.
You cannot just use "biological sex" in a law. You have to define precisely what that phrase means. And as conservatives don't like the definition of "biological sex" that actual biologists come up with, they have to try to craft a legal definition that destroys trans people without inconveniencing cis people. And that simply isn't possible. There's no way to write legislation that destroys trans people without also harming a few cis people as collateral damage.
This isn't inconveniencing anyone but the 1% of the 1% of cases. If you are going make a political tirade out of this, you should choose your punching bag better, this isn't even vague at all but just a bureaucratic mistake. There are cases where the term biological sex can be "hopelessly vague" but this isn't it as much as you might like it otherwise, and this just makes the people behind the decision look bad.
The kid identifies as cis, everyone of his classmates see him for his gender, hormone and chromosomal expression are likely standard cis. People better hope that it can't be traced back to any sort of political baggage, or that if it is, that it is due to conservative influence, because this is going to backfire spectacularly. It isn't going to make or break any of the laws behind it, but it is illustrating a certain lack of humanity on the people enforcing the law, and that gives mouthpieces with an axe to grind something to barrage behind.
Kudos on being trans and defending "the law is the law" in regards to transphobic laws. Wanna know a secret? They don't care about the law, look at Trump. Another secret, the law itself is only defined by when its chosen to be enforced, cue hundreds of outdated laws still on the books. Sarcasm aside, the sadism of sharing the pain is never constructive, but isn't even really applicable in this case, this is just an article blowing up because a newspaper needed to sell stories and fight against the bureaucracy is always an enticing one.
Mental gymnastics cannot make up for a lack of humanity, which is precisely the problem of transphobes. I'd recommend emulating them less in this regard just because you think you can argue a hallmark out of the case.
I think the point was that "biological sex" is a legal term, not a biological one. Hence the application of the law here, irregardless of what this kid's actual situation is. It's a demonstration of why this law is stupid, and what stupid things a school board has to do to remain compliant.
They're almost certainly not grouping the kid with the girls out of spite, but to avoid being liable for not doing so if someone were to find out this kid is, according to the law, "biologically female". The school has to protect itself from this liability, and thus we get this extreme example of the law being stupid.
If that was it, they could just have obtained a signed affidavit from the parents and perhaps their doctors that what is on the birth certificate was a mistake and that they are in the process of resolving it.
And liability from whom, the state government? Other parents? Law doesn't exist in a vacuum, it has to be enforced and in cases like this is enforced in a court, the lawsuit would have to come from some place it is not realistically going to come form. The law might be stupid, but there are no shortage of stupid laws no one gives shit about "liability" because they are not enforced: https://go2tutors.com/14-forgotten-u-s-laws-that-still-technically-exist/
The law does not provide room for the birth certificate being mistaken I'm afraid.
And yes, there's a chance the state could come after them, or some other parent or activist group could citing this law. Hence them attempting to shut down this potential liability. They can't risk enforcement, so they won't.
Gonna have to disagree on those chances (can't help but notice the complete silence on the rest of the absurd laws on record with equally insignificant chances of getting prosecuted for that I linked for - too inconvenient to acknowledge?), and the law literally does, which is why the parents can get it corrected. It just takes time. The article literally states they are doing this.
Those other absurd laws aren't remotely relevant, hence the lack of acknowledgement. Many are irrelevant or very old. There is a large movement in the US that seeks to demonize trans people in sports, and this law isn't that old, so in the current political climate there's definitely a non-zero chance it gets acted upon.
And that the law allows you to correct your birth certificate does not mean that the law assumes your future to-be-corrected certificate is currently legally valid. I'm sure they'll get it resolved eventually, but at that moment the school felt they had to apply the law.
It definitely involves feelings.
A trans person could take advantage of the same mechanism, which is why it's not allowed. They care more about hurting trans people than they worry about the few cis kids that fall through the cracks. This kid was just acceptable collateral damage in their culture war.
It is allowed. Doesn't matter if the trans person takes advantage of the same mechanism, the difference would be they would be the ones liable for lying. That's what an affidavit does, transfers and diminishes liability.