It’s interesting how an article about gender stereotypes upholds the same system of oppression that it’s trying to call out.

This media outlet seems to be capitalizing on the attacks against athletes who are transgender by throwing the word ‘transgender’ around casually and using it as clickbait through a lens of ‘derogation’ without attempting to examine why a term that describes someone else’s identity, would be used in a derogatory way against Geeta Saini.

This oversight creates a misleading narrative about gender and sexuality through a cis-heteronormative understanding, by insinuating that being queer or trans is something to be feared.

This adds to the same patriarchal stereotypes that marginalize women, by creating sharper boundaries in attempts to dictate gender norms through false and baseless claims against women who are trans, instead of surpassing the gender divides created to restrict.

Republicans in the US, and people in general who don’t know much about trans folks, keep claiming “science” or “biology” as ‘evidence’, to justify their arguments that restrict trans people’s rights to live and participate in life.

Researchers Jack Turban from Stanford University and Jules Gill-Peterson from Johns Hopkins University recently published an article on CNN, describing how attacks on trans people are also attacks on science.

While addressing the legislative attacks on trans youth’s right to participate in sports, Turban and Gill-Peterson cite how experience from California, which protects the right of trans students to fully participate in sports, shows that trans athletes do not “dominate” girls’ sports leagues.

They write: “Conservative politicians also like to point out that cisgender men on average do better than cisgender women in many sporting events. But they refuse to acknowledge that transgender women are not cisgender men, and that they face many barriers to success in sport that cisgender men do not. Unlike cisgender men, transgender women face dramatically elevated rates of bullying, harassment and subsequent anxiety and depression -- all of which make it difficult to train and succeed in athletics from a young age. In short, these anti-sports bills don't just deny scientific and social reality, they pretend to reverse it.”