Home » Twit Awards for the Week 5/23/22

Twit Awards for the Week 5/23/22

ceciliab | May 23, 2022

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Transgender rights have become the subject of campaign commercials. Unfortunately, in this case, Republicans are trying to outdo each other in showing their lack of support for transgender people. The ads feature not only a disrespect for the civil rights of others, but also bad information, according to NBC News. For spreading hate and misinformation, the candidates behind these ads, their campaigns, and the voters who encourage them all get a TWIT Award.

Virginia State Delegate Tim Anderson is threatening legal action against Barnes and Noble, because the store sells the book Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabae. That book has been banned by the local school board, but it is being sold at the store. For the preposterous logic that a book which is too advanced for middle school students is also too advanced for parents, and for generally siding with the idea that the government should decide what anyone can read, Virginia Delegate Tim Anderson gets a TWIT Award. The Advocate has this story.

During a discussion of abortion by the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, Representative Dan Bishop kept asking D. Yashica Robinson to define what is a woman. For latching onto something that is not really the topic of the hearing, and for grinding things to a halt until he called attention to himself, Representative Dan Bishop gets a TWIT Award. This story comes from LGBTQ Nation.

During a commencement speech at the University of Wyoming, U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis talked of the “fundamental scientific truth” that there are only two genders. This denies the reality of intersex people, and it denies the reality that biologists have found that the simplicity of “biological sex” is not accurate. For bringing up a totally unnecessary subject at a commencement address, and for insisting that a grade-school-level understanding of science is all that is necessary, even though science is much more complicated than that, Senator Cynthia Lummis gets a TWIT Award. The Huffington Post has this story, and reports that the students at the commencement booed the senator when she brought up the topic, showing that it does not play well even in Wyoming.

It is hard to be certain when Bill Maher means what he says and when he is just going for a joke. He is a comedian first. However, on his show, he talked about people coming out as LGBTQ+ because it is “trendy,” and predicted, “we will all be gay in 2054.” The idea that people are announcing their sexual orientation or gender identity because it is “trendy” has some basis in fact; it is easier to tell of your gender identity or sexual orientation when others are talking of theirs. However, there are limits to that. Even if some are claiming an identity which is inaccurate, there are those who identify accurately as heterosexual and cisgender. He also said that we are “literally experimenting on children,” a phrase used to describe transgender medical treatment of minors (and even older patients). He later said, “Maybe childhood makes you sad sometimes and there are other solutions besides, ‘Hand me the d*** saw.'” As John Oliver noted in his commentary, surgery is not always the goal of a gender change. For jokes based on a misunderstanding of transgender issues, and for spreading misinformation, Bill Maher gets a TWIT Award. PinkNews has this story.