AOC Decries Genital Examinations During Hearing on Sports Participation
Democrat condemns further government interference in women's lives
One of the most prominent progressives in Congress on Tuesday condemned plans to conduct genital examinations on young students to exclude transgender girls from participating on the school sports which matches their gender identity.
Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) spoke out at a hearing of the House Oversight Committee, drawing a line between the harassment and oppression of transgender women and girls and restrictions on abortion rights.
Republicans have been passing hundreds of laws at the state level over the past year or so aimed at restricting transgender students from school sports, bathrooms, gender-affirming care and more.
Ocasio-Cortez delved into a discussion about the use of intrusive genital examinations to enforce such restrictions during a discussion with a hearing witness, Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center.
“Now, I’ve spent a decent amount of my time here in Congress sitting through panels and hearings of men attempting to restrict the rights of women and telling us that it’s for our own good. But I want to dive a little bit more deeply into why this issue — targeting trans women in sports — is particularly problematic, not just for trans girls, but for all of us,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We’re here today because there’s a proposal here, and there are several proposals here to further marginalize trans women in sports.
“And I think about this all the time, because trans people in the United States doesn’t even exceed one percent of our population, and yet, there’s so many resources and energy and time dedicated to figuring out how we can more finely exclude them from our sports,” she added. “And I thought why — why so much effort and dedication on such a tiny portion of the U.S. population when there virtually is no major issue that is — that is precipitating.
“And I started to realize that a lot of these proposals here involve invasion of privacy of all women. Ms. Goss Graves, can you tell us a little bit about what ‘sex testing’ looks like for youth in states with trans athletic bans?”
“It’s terrible. In some states, any individual could challenge whether someone is a girl enough to play. In some states, it requires actual genital verification, which is shocking,” Goss Graves replied.
Ocasio-Cortez followed up to verify and clarify the answer given by Goss Graves.
“And let me just stop you right there. You said there are some proposals. We’ve seen this in Ohio. There was a proposed ban on trans athletes that originally allowed for genital examinations on minors in order to ‘protect’ women. Is that correct?” she asked.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Goss Graves responded.
Ocasio-Cortez followed up further.
“And so, we’re seeing here in this guise, under the guise of not only trying to further marginalize trans women and girls, we are talking about opening up all women and girls to genital examinations when they are underage,” the congresswoman said.
“That’s right,” Goss Graves answered.
Please support our work…
Please subscribe…