TWIBS: Scumbags Unite to Sue MN
A newish anti-trans activist group has declared it’s litigating against the state of Minnesota, alongside Alliance Defending Freedom.
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.
I regret to inform you that the transphobia has come to Minnesota.
Okay, this is hardly the first time something transphobic has happened in MN. It’s a big state with plenty of suburban and rural enclaves, and even the Twin Cities aren’t necessarily excluded from the ever present threat of bigotry… but, being a resident myself, this kind of buffoonery hits close to home.
So a relatively new anti-trans activist group, Female Athletes United (FAU), is litigating against several people and organizations in Minnesota for—you already know, baby—allowing trans girls to compete in sports. Named in the suit are Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Commissioner Rebecca Lucero of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, Executive Director Erich Martens of the Minnesota State High School League, Commissioner Willie Jett of the Department of Education and three school districts. They may be new players in the scene, but this isn’t FAU’s first rodeo; last year they, among many others, were represented by evil conservative activist org Alliance Defending Freedom (dubbed pursuant to the conservative mandate of calling things what they aren’t) in a lawsuit against the Biden administration regarding proposed changes to Title IX. If you aren’t familiar with Title IX, it’s a federal law that protects students from gender-based discrimination, which the ADF and other conservative hate groups believe shouldn’t include trans people.
If you want to know more about Alliance Defending Freedom, dweeby British guy John Oliver ran a thorough segment on the group earlier this month on his sad, sad pseudo-late night show, Last Week Tonight. Just like last time, the ADF are representing FAU in court.
“Minnesota is failing its female athletes. The state is putting the rights of males ahead of females, telling girls their hard work may never be enough to win and that they don’t deserve fairness and safety,” Suzanne Beecher, legal counsel from ADF, said disingenuously in a press release regarding the suit. “By sacrificing protection for female athletes, Minnesota fails to offer girls equal treatment and opportunity, violating Title IX’s provisions.”
It should be noted that, because the Trump administration rolled back Joe Biden’s Title IX changes immediately upon taking office and has yet to issue explicit changes to the bill, the participation of transgender girls in sports is absolutely and unequivocally not a violation of Title IX. In fact the very purpose of these lawsuits is to lose in state courts so that they can appeal their case to federal courts and eventually the Supreme Court, where they hope to receive a rubber stamp approval to discriminate against trans athletes.
The lawsuit involves two softball playing cisgender girls, supposedly members of FAU, who have had their lives ruined by big scary trans girls. One girl’s team failed to advance to state competitions, which was surely the result of presumably one transgender girl on the opposing team. Another claimed to have been hit by a softball pitched by a trans girl, and said she had “never experienced pain like this when getting hit by pitches on other occasions,” a totally objective statement that isn’t rooted in bigotry at all.
The FAU is headed by Chairman Kristi Burton Brown, who is also the Executive Vice President at the Advance Colorado Institute, the former Chairwoman of the Colorado Republican Party and a member of the Colorado State Board of Education, representing Colorado's 4th Congressional District; President and Treasurer Michele Hadley, a Texas civil trial attorney who served on the Executive Board of Baylor Federalist Society, Baylor Public Interest Legal Society, and Christian Legal Society; and Secretary Sandra Bucha, a former prosecutor and public defender.
The Minnesota Department of Human Rights issued a public response to the lawsuit, saying, “The Minnesota Human Rights Act is one the strongest civil rights laws in the country and protects every Minnesotan from discrimination. We will respond in court.”
It’s hard to say how this will all turn out. Minnesota, as a state, is one of the strongest havens for LGBTQ+ Americans today, and I don’t anticipate that changing anytime soon. Unfortunately, that may be exactly why FAU and ADF began their lawsuit here, hoping for a quick loss at the state level so they can swiftly move to federal appeals and SCOTUS.
Only time will tell what these jackasses can accomplish.
Alyssa Steinsiek is a trans woman journalist who reports on news relevant to the queer community and occasionally posts on BlueSky.
