Twit Awards for the Week 11/6/23

In Utah, the state government set up the Utah School Activity Eligibility Commission, a group whose real reason for existing is to determine whether a particular transgender athlete has a significant advantage. The Speaker of the state House is supposed to appoint an expert in gender identity health care to the commission. The “expert” appointed is Dr. Paul Hruz, who has never had a transgender patient in his care, and who has a long and sorry history of spouting anti-transgender misinformation. For stacking the deck against transgender students participating in sports, the Speaker of the state House gets a Twit Award. The Salt Lake Tribune has this story.

The Mississippi state legislature passed a law forbidding transgender students in that state from participating in school sports. They also passed a law to prevent transgender minors from receiving gender-affirming medical care, which would have at least reduced the alleged advantage that transgender athletes have. Of course, no one changes gender just to win at sports. But, are there actually any transgender athletes in the state of Mississippi? WAPT-TV News asked the superintendents of the state’s school districts if there are any transgender athletes in their district, and all responded, “No.” For attempting to solve a problem that does not exist, and for making the solution to this problem into a campaign issue, the Republicans of Mississippi get a Twit Award.

The University of Wyoming banned Laramie Faith Community Church elder Todd Schmidt from promoting his church at the Student Union for one year, as a punishment for misgendering and deadnaming a student at the university. He is suing the University, and U.S. District Judge Nancy Freudenthal granted a preliminary injunction, meaning that he can can have a table at the Student Union. For claiming that misgendering and deadnaming do not constitute harassment, when the entire purpose of misgendering and deadnaming is to harass, U.S. District Judge Nancy Freudenthal gets aTwit Award. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

We told you last week about Mike Johnson, the new Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, who used to work for the Alliance Defending Freedom. Reporting by The Huffington Post shows that his wife has run a religious counseling company, Onward Christian Counseling Services, which compares homosexuality with incest and bestiality. The group took down its website shortly after their views were made public. For making dishonesty a Christian value, and for attempting to change a person’s innate sense of sexual attraction or gender identity despite the impossibility of that endeavor, Onward Christian Counseling gets aTwit Award.

Prager University, a misnamed entity which attempts to promote conservative viewpoints, and which is accredited by no educational experts, produced a video which it calls a “documentary,” which spreads a lot of misinformation about transgender people. Prager U admits to the Washington Times that this project was rejected by YouTube and by film festivals. However, it got a big promotion on X (the entity which was known as Twitter when Elon Musk bought it). All users are receiving ads for the film, whose title is Detrans: The Dangers of Gender-Affirming Care. For promoting a film so slanted it was rejected by YouTube and film festivals, X gets another Twit Award. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Marjorie Taylor Greene got to testify under oath about her bill to ban gender-affirming care nationwide. She claimed that, “There is also a growing movement, all across America, called detransition. These are many young people that made the tragic mistakes of having mastectomies, having castrations done to them, having gender mutilation surgeries when they were still in their early, uh, teens, um, maybe even before they were teenagers.” The youngest any gender-affirming bottom surgery is documented to have been done in the U.S. is age 17, and that is rare. As for mastectomies, they are not performed on pre-teens, as they are unnecessary at that time. Also, the number of detransitioners is not growing nearly as fast as she would make one think. For presenting misinformation under oath, and for making up things as she goes along, Marjorie Taylor Greene gets aTwit Award. This story comes from LGBTQ Nation.

A content warning: this next story contains some “pornographic content,” according to its own admission. 1819 News did a piece on a Baptist preacher in Alabama who crossdresses “to relieve stress.” Bubba Copeland also ran social media sites in which he admitted to his crossdressing identity, Britini Blaire Summerlin. Two days after publishing this information, 1819 News revealed that the Baptist hierarchy was aware of the crossdressing pastor, and prayed for him. There are questions about terminology and pronouns, given that Bubba Copeland essentially identifies as a man in a dress and also as transgender. For making a big deal out of praying for him, the leaders of the Baptist Church get aTwit Award.

Tags: featured, opinion

Category: Transgender Opinion