First off, I am inordinately proud of this short video. I can’t say as I’ve ever looked this good (camera angles, lighting, casting), or sounded as smart and sane. I am aware, btw, that I stood there, and said nothing.
I was outside Coffman Union at the University of Minnesota where a Turning Point USA event, an open mike shindig where attendees could ask Riley Gaines questions, was taking place. Because most of the Turning Point attendees scurried inside, I was the only, and I guess, obviously, sex realist—what gave it away? my hairstyle? my wardrobe choices?—walking around amongst the reality-rejecting rabble outside. I did, immediately upon arrival, walk right up to an obese man in overalls pretending to be an obese woman in overalls, said hi, and asked what had drawn him to this event.
Overall Man said Riley Gaines was transphobic because she had promoted anti-trans legislation. I asked what was anti-trans about women’s sports and locker rooms for women. His friend, a somewhat disheveled Brown man with a beard, jumped in and said he was a scientist so I should watch what I said. Because he could refute it. With science. But he didn’t. He said trans women were women. I dutifully pointed out that that is a slogan, not science. Multicultural Man called me “dumb,” kind of a conversation killer. But it also branded me, a 68-year-old woman with my hands in my pockets, a transphobe. Alone and in their midst.
That’s when the mentally ill man (wait, the loudest mentally ill man) with the bullhorn stepped in, and I was surrounded by uniformly unhealthy looking people calling me a bigot and a transphobe and suggesting I was drunk and/or deaf. It seemed best under the circumstances to smile and put my hands in my pockets and say nothing. Because these vile screeching people were, once again, displaying everything that needs to be said about the “trans community.”
I don’t want to make a blanket statement, but I can say that everyone I spoke with had no rational argument for anything, and even the few that expressed a desire to have a conversation, ran out of stuff to say after a transwoman is a woman, Fuck Riley Gaines, and You’re dumb (my personal favorite).
Some dude who said I could call him a journalist if I wanted to asked me whether I was in favor of “testing” in women’s sports. Then he clarified, maybe professional or, you know, college sports. I mentioned that all other categories—weight, ability, paralympic—verified eligibility, so why not sex? He searched around in the attic for an answer, kind of panic-stricken, visibly came up empty, and fired back, “You tell me.” I was in the company of towering intellects.
At this point, a man with a beast of a five-o’clock shadow and a kind of bumpy midsection stepped in and posed a killer gotcha—”Since it seems like you’ve done a lot of research, I wonder if you know what transwomen do, like what exactly we actually inject?” He had long woman hair. I met this person straight in the eyes—he had beautiful eyes. Was he for real? Well, obviously not, but did he intend to convince me he was actually a woman because of his drug regimen? Minutes passed. Speaking slowly and using small words, I pointed out that women did not have to inject anything to become women, and the fact that he did suggested he was a man who had effed up his endocrine system with estrogen and testosterone blockers, not a woman at all. His immediate comeback, impressive in its snappiness, was that yes, he was a woman. I countered with, “No, no you’re not. You’re a man who has fucked with his endocrine system. Any fool can do that.”
I rattled on about how the only requirement for being a “transwoman” was to be a man, and that I could not be a transwoman, that I just was a woman. He had that disturbing crazy person habit of not blinking at all, and repeated that he was a woman too. I could see this conversation was not going to be fruitful. For the life of me, I couldn’t think of an argument to this non sequitur, as I stared at his stubble-covered man jaw. There is a reason the door to trial lawyer has been closed to me.
Instead, I asked him if he used women’s bathrooms and he said he did, to which I pointed out that he was not only male but a predatory man, since he didn’t respect women’s boundaries. This man was only a bit taller than me and not fit looking—while his entitlement to spout obviously false and absurd assertions was well within the male range, his propensity for physical aggression did not seem honed. I did not fear that he would punch me.
I suggested that, while he was free to believe what he wanted to about himself, everyone else in the world was free to their own perceptions about him, and that devoting one’s life to “passing,” which is nice talk for deception, is a waste of a human life. My god, do something more, have a higher goal than deceiving others. I sputtered, “Volunteer, for god’s sake.” “I volunteer,” he said, a little hurt.
As young people do, when the going gets tough, he got out his phone, and showed me a screenful of headshots of a male-looking person with a mustache—would I want this person to use the women’s bathroom, he asked. I didn’t get a good look at the mustached person, so, given current company, I assumed it was a woman on testosterone. I said people make choices, and choices have consequences. If this woman made herself look male then it was on her to find a bathroom that doesn’t freak women out. Smugly, our man in need of male shadow said, “That’s a cis man.” I know I was not the only one of the two of us wondering what his point was. I reiterate, I have never felt so smart as I have in this crowd.
Abruptly, he said it was useless to talk to me, and walked away.
As I went into the building, the full complement, about 50 people, of folx who reject their sex along with hygiene and basic grooming were chanting “HRT! Make it free!” The Turning Point crowd inside, about 60 people, were notably healthier and cleaner. I chatted up some University of Minnesota security guards who mentioned that virtually their entire staff was on duty, as well as heavy police presence. I asked if this was normal for a speaker, and they said it was not. They shook their heads over the necessity for this level of security for saying something so uncontroversial. The Turning Point people were running a little behind schedule, and I knew how these conversations were going to go, so I didn’t stay.
As I walked back to the train in the autumnal gloaming, the sex-rejectors’ cheerleader was shouting through her bullhorn (this was Bullhorn Woman; the “trans” community in Minnesota owns two bullhorns and passes them around) that Riley Gaines hated 5-year-olds who were detained by ICE this past winter, but the cheerleader was losing her audience by using full sentences and the like, so she switched to something simpler and catchier, and Fuck Riley Gaines, on repeat, echoed down the inclusive walkways of Minnesota’s hub of higher education.
Agree. You look fabulous.
There is nothing to say about the interactions, which are predictably, mind-numbingly stupid and explain why it's been "no debate" forever.
How did the world ever get to the point where we let really dumb people have their way?