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The February 26, 2021 passage of the Equality Act in the US House of Representatives piqued conservatives into a moral panic.
The bill, which would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, had a terrifying potential for Republicans: the presence of trans girls in high school sports.
There was House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s statement that, “This really seems like an onslaught against freedom of religion [and] for girls’ sports as well.” There was Rep. Tom McClintock’s (R-Calif.) assertion that the legislation “destroys women’s sports and renders parents powerless to protect their own children.” And there was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) tweet—in response to Rep. Marie Newman (D-Ill.), who has a transgender daughter—saying, “Your biological son does NOT belong in my daughters’ bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams.”
All this language of the need to “protect,” the need to root out other children from “bathrooms” and “locker rooms,” is hard to square with reality. As with the introduction of “bathroom bills,” the anti-trans argument is a red herring. It is another example of conservatives standing athwart progressive social change in the name of protecting children—long a hallmark of right-wing reactionary politics.
But it is also particularly infuriating because all this effort has been summoned on a day when actual women in sports were in the news for being harmed.
While legislators on the House floor were pontificating about the demise of women’s sports, another story was unfolding. Yesterday, John Geddert, head coach of the 2012 gold-medal women’s Olympic gymnastics team, committed suicide in Michigan. He had just been charged with human trafficking and sex crimes against girls as young as 13. (None of the members of Congress have commented on that, from what I’ve seen.)
Geddert was a longtime friend of Larry Nassar, the convicted rapist who was accused of assaulting 265 girls as young as six. His victims included Olympic gold-medal gymnasts McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman, and Simone Biles. Nassar admitted to sexually abusing girls at the Twistars Gymnastics Club owned by Geddert.
Abusive coaches are nothing new, and it’s not only sexual abuse. In 2019, Mary Cain, the youngest American runner to make a World Championships team, accused Nike coach Alberto Salazar of physical and psychological abuse that ruined her career. A Business Insider story from last year details the psychological abuse female college athletes from a variety of sports say they experienced at the hands of their coaches. And last August, Texas Tech fired two of its women basketball coaches after accusations surfaced of physical, mental, and verbal abuse.
This abuse, of course, is not limited to women either. Among the most notorious abusers in the sports world is Jerry Sandusky, the Penn State assistant football coach who in 2012 was found guilty of sexually assaulting 10 boys. Joe Paterno, the head coach who ignored reports of Sandusky’s abuse, was fired and died of cancer months later.
As scandal after scandal emerges about the pervasive abuse of young athletes, it’s time we reevaluate our priorities. Trans athletes aren’t the problem.
KurtisC1993 on March 1st, 2021 at 01:59 UTC »
Yes, sexually predatory coaches, doctors, managers... and their enablers.
Larry Nassar did not get away with molesting hundreds—maybe even thousands—of girls for so long because he was good at hiding it. He got away with it because the people who had the power to stop the abuse, those who were made aware of what Nassar was doing, turned a blind eye. Kathy Klages, Steve Penny, John Geddert, Lou Anna Simon—all of these people and likely several more could have reported Nassar, as they were legally and morally obligated to do. Instead, they put the reputation of Michigan State University/USA Gymnastics above the safety of the girls under their care. That is how predators get away with predation—they're allowed to get away with it.
USA Gymnastics has long fostered a climate of fear and intimidation, where abuse is an accepted part of the regimen and you just have to "suck it up" like all the other girls. It's no coincidence that long-term depression, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, and preventable permanent injuries are all so prevalent among former gymnasts. It is the entire culture that allows these things to happen. It is that same culture of winning at any cost that allows predators like Nassar to prey upon unsuspecting athletes for years on end.
It is not enough to prosecute and imprison the predators themselves. Their enablers must also be held accountable. The culture of impunity, of austerity, of abuse—it needs to die.
pdxgrassfed on March 1st, 2021 at 00:11 UTC »
Can confirm- gymnastics coach molested many of my teammates over the years in secret. Fuck you jeff
tattooedplant on February 28th, 2021 at 23:12 UTC »
I did gymnastics growing up and I was pretty good at it. I was always told to transfer to the other division(USA gymnastics) and go to a bigger gym. I was raised by a single mom who didn’t have the time or money to invest in that as a career for me though. Growing up, it always made me sad to think about what could’ve been had we had more resources. However, with everything thats just recently come out, I’m so glad that never happened. I really dodged a bullet there. One that I didn’t even know existed. It’s disgusting the abuse been going on for so long and just recently something has been done about it. At one of my gymnastics meets, USA gymnastics was also using the gym for their meet and Nassar was there. It’s crazy to look back on now. I know no one would put their child in that position if they had known what was actually going on.