TWIBS: Fed Mad at Cali Trans Girl, What Else is New
After a transgender girl shared the podium with cis girls at a track and field competition, Donald Trump… you know, got mad. Obviously.
Humor by Alyssa Steinsiek
This Week in Barrel Scraping (TWIBS) is Assigned Media’s oldest column! Every Friday, Alyssa Steinsiek digs deep from the well of transphobia and finds the most obnoxious, goofy thing transphobes have said or obsessed over during the week and tears it to shreds.
It must yet again be a day that ends in Y, because Trump’s Justice Department is threatening to obliterate a state Emperor Palpatine style for allowing a transgender girl to compete in school sports.
The latest state to earn Trump’s ire is, perhaps unsurprisingly, California. Long viewed as a bastion of American liberalism (despite blundering Category 5 Dipshit, Governor Gavin Newsom, being a contemptible weenie), California has spent generations enduring the scrutiny of every conservative dad in America.
Now it’s Donnie’s turn, baby.
On May 31, transgender student-athlete AB Hernandez placed first in the high jump and triple jump, and finished second in the long jump, at a California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) state track and field finals meet. Trump threatened to cut off federal funds to the state of California ahead of the competition should Hernandez be allowed to compete, and on Monday the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division (who recently lost more than 70% of their employees due to the draconian, bigoted agenda put in place by division head Harmeet Dhillon) sent a letter to California public schools demanding that they refuse to comply with CIF’s rule allowing transgender student-athletes to compete in categories that “[are] consistent with their gender identity.” Then, shortly before one in the morning on Tuesday, Donald Trump made a presumably furious post on his personal social media platform that nobody with a soul uses, Truth Social.
“A Biological Male competed in California Girls State Finals, WINNING BIG, despite the fact that they were warned by me not to do so,” Trump posted dumbly. “As Governor Gavin Newscum fully understands, large scale fines will be imposed!!!”
Gavin Newscum, it must be said, implies the existence of Gavin Oldscum.
This situation is ridiculous for a lot of reasons. Firstly, because of a CIF rule change issued late last month, Hernandez (and any transgender girl who wins a CIF competition) must share her position with the cisgender girl immediately preceding her in ranking. Effectively, trans girls who compete in California interscholastic sports must place an asterisk next to their wins, because every cisgender girl who places behind them in competition will be considered one rank higher than they actually place. Frankly, I don’t know if that’s better or worse than having a separate but equal category for transgender competitors. I guess, at least, these girls can show up and compete… even if their wins are being stolen from them by the girls they’re beating.
Secondly, Trump and the rest of the bigot cabal probably shouldn’t be frothing at the mouth over Hernandez’s win considering her track and field peers are nothing but supportive. Brooke White, who shared the first place podium with Hernandez after scoring second in long jump, said, “Sharing the podium was nothing but an honor. Although the publicity she’s been receiving has been pretty negative, I believe she deserves publicity because she’s a superstar, she’s a rock star, she’s representing who she is … [as] a part of the queer community, I want AB Hernandez to know that we all have her back.”
Finally, the Trump administration has been desperately trying to enforce its anti-trans athlete executive order against other states for months and with no real success, last month having given up in a dispute against Maine over trans student-athletes. The federal funding cuts Trump levied against Maine involved defunding child nutrition programs in an attempt to starve low-income school children. It’s unclear if they’ll try the same tactics in their upcoming battle against California, but a coalition of 20 state Attorneys General are currently litigating against the federal government over these recurring threats, which they describe as “creeping authoritarianism.”
Anyway, we’ve heard plenty from cisgender people. What does the trans girl this story is centered around have to say?
“They see how hard I train,” Hernandez said to The Guardian about her peers, who she says love and support her. “I constantly watch [myself] on film, see what I can do better. I probably do 10 times more than any athlete at my school. They see that, and the media doesn’t. They have a lot of respect for me and I don’t get hate at my own school.”
Of her fellow competitors, she said, “I will forever be grateful for these girls. When we were lining up to get our medals, I told them: ‘You made my experience perfect. I couldn’t have done it without you.’ It was amazing to see they stood up for me.”
Lastly, to other young trans athletes who are afraid to play and compete given the current political climate, she said, “You are probably going to be the only person who knows how hard you work. As long as you know you’ve put in the time, the work, the effort, that’s all that matters. Whatever anyone else says, and it might be a large-scale of people, just tune it out.”
I have tremendous respect and admiration for AB Hernandez, and every other trans athlete bravely competing in sports despite the backlash and pressure they face from bigots. I wish I had trans folks like them readily visible when I was a kid, working hard to be role models and inspire the rest of us to be brave.
I’m glad trans kids have them now.
Alyssa Steinsiek is a trans woman journalist who reports on news relevant to the queer community and occasionally posts on BlueSky.
