Great analysis on several inaccuracies in this South Park episode BY MEY RUDE
NOVEMBER 14 2019 4:56 PM EST

“...OK, there’s just so much wrong here. First of all, most trans athletes have to adhere to very strict hormone testing before they are allowed to compete in accordance with their gender. For example, a trans woman who wants to compete in the Olympics must demonstrate a testosterone level below 10 nmol/L for at least a year before their first competition. Secondly, this just a repetition of the world’s oldest trans trope: the idea that trans women are just men in disguise up to no good. So even if it wasn’t actively harmful, it would still be the laziest possible depiction of transgender people.

But it is actively harmful. Reinforcing the idea, even unintentionally, that trans women are fraudulent decievers leads to violence — like when men flirt or sleep with trans women, “find out that they’re really men,” and assault or murder them for “tricking” them. This is exactly what happened to Jennifer Laude, a trans woman who was killed by a U.S. Marine in the Philippines in 2015.

Her killer, Joseph Pemberton, argued in court that drowning Laude in a toilet bowl was justified because of her so-called deception. That argument, sometimes referred to as the “trans panic defense,” is still legal in 42 states.

It might seem like “just a joke” from a show known to push boundaries, but it’s hardly funny when Black trans women and other trans women of color are killed every year because this exact line of thinking allowed their murderers to view them as less than human. Nearly two dozen transgender people have been killed so far this year, and the majority of perpetrators were their sexual or romantic partners.”

out.com/television/2019/11/14/heres-what-south-parks-awful-episode-trans-athletes-gets-wrong