America Is Being Consumed by a Moral Panic Over Trans People
nytimes.comIn Utah last year, the parents of two girls who’d placed second and third during a state-level sporting event got suspicious about the girl who’d handily won first place: Had she always been a girl?
At the time, Utah had not yet passed a law banning transgender athletes from participating in school sports under their gender identity.
Still, officials received complaints from parents about athletes who didn’t “look feminine enough,” David Spatafore, the legislative representative of the Utah High School Activities Association, recently testified.
Officials were only too happy to investigate; in the case of the student who won first place, school administrators tracked down her academic records without informing her or her parents. “The school went back to kindergarten,” Spatafore testified. “And she’d always been a female.” Phew!
