A Washington State ballot measure that would require girls from kindergarten through high school to undergo sex-verification testing before taking part in sports provoked nationwide outrage.
IL26-638 would bar transgender athletes from girls' teams by mandating that health-care providers certify a player's sex assigned at birth through genetic screening, testosterone testing or an examination of reproductive anatomy, reported The Cut.
The measure, if passed, would be the most extreme of its kind in the country, and physicians questioned how the exams would be conducted and by whom, and many raised concerns about privacy and the risk for sexual abuse – as well as the overarching goal of the bill's Republican backers.
"Demanding to examine a child's genitals for them to play sports is f---ing insane," fumed journalist Laura Bassett.
"Can't think of a thing that will radicalize a generation faster than 'you've gotta let that old man in the corner over there see what's inside those pants before you play Kindergarten volleyball,'" observed The Onion's Ben Collins.
"To be fair, conservatives openly hates women’s and girls sports and this is a sure fire policy method of destroying them," noted Zeteo's Asawin Suebsaeng.
"The ultimate goal is to legally ban women from sports at all levels and ages by using a 'protection from trans predators' rationale to override Title IX," agreed popular Bluesky user Kait Richardson.
"They're going after Title IX, the education amendment banning sex discrimination in schools," argued teacher Anton Kiridian. "They don't want women doing sports at all; home-making and child-rearing only."
"Directly from the Heritage Foundation," quoted Bluesky user Mary Nasca: "'The current Title IX regime as applied to sports (and elsewhere) is part of a sustained social engineering effort that is designed to produce a new sort of woman – one that is more aggressive, more competitive, more male, less relational, and less oriented toward the goods of family and motherhood.'”
"Which means genital examinations of five year olds," pointed out author Jennifer R. Povey. "Or the violation of the genetic privacy of girls. I am still with 'This is how we get women used to their bodies being the property of the state.' (Testosterone levels testing is meaningless prior to puberty)."
"This is so perverted. What the f---. Leave little kids alone!" exclaimed climate investor Zoe Samuel.
"The obsession with trans women in sports is, apart from the abject bigotry, a symptom of how we take amateur sports participation way too seriously in this country," offered journalist Marisa Kabas.
"This is so f---ing disgusting," seethed Army veteran Rowan Freja Mooney.