Category: Misogyny

Why We Investigated Matthew Trewhella, the Far-Right Wisconsin Pastor Influencing Republican Politics

Some people said militant anti-abortion activist Matthew Trewhella was a ’90s figure who’s no longer relevant, but our reporting shows he’s influencing policies, bills and movements today.

by Phoebe Petrovic, Wisconsin Watch Aug. 2, 5 a.m. EDT

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Wisconsin Watch. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

In the fall of 2022, Phoebe Petrovic, an investigative reporter at Wisconsin Watch and a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network, noticed a pastor and his church appearing in local news coverage for their anti-LGBTQ+ protests. Looking closer revealed Pastor Matthew Trewhella’s startling history. And digging even deeper, she noticed an untold story: his broader influence on modern Republican politics. His rise helps illustrate the growing power of the Christian right in the Republican party. Here, Petrovic describes how she reported the story and what she learned.

What were the key takeaways from your reporting?

  • A few decades ago, Trewhella was known as a militant anti-abortion activist. Today, he’s got a different reputation: thought leader on the far right, increasingly welcomed by Republicans.
  • Trewhella helped to rehabilitate his reputation through his 2013 self-published book, “The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates,” which uses a 16th-century Protestant doctrine to argue that government officials have a God-given right and duty to defy laws, policies or court opinions deemed “unjust or immoral” under “the law of God.”
  • He’s preached this doctrine to county Republican parties and local groups across the country, even to the National Sheriffs’ Association, a preeminent law enforcement organization.
  • His book has influenced Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions. At least 10 measures across the country refer to lesser magistrates. One of the earliest, issued in 2019, was authored by a county commissioner who has described reading Trewhella’s book as a “turning point” for him.
  • A prominent booster of debunked election conspiracy claims is using Trewhella’s book to disrupt future elections.

How does Trewhella fit into the election? What does he say about his work?

  • In the cast of characters who might influence the upcoming election, Trewhella is not rallying crowds the same way as Steve Bannon, the former Donald Trump strategist, or Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative student group Turning Point USA. Trewhella is more behind the scenes, providing a religious justification for some far-right policies and causes.
  • Trewhella says that he promotes nonviolence. But after an activist killed an abortion provider in 1993, he signed a document describing the murder of these doctors as “justifiable.”
  • In a brief interview, I asked Trewhella about his reputational shift over the decades. He responded: “Most people will always only care about three things in life: me, myself and I. … It’s only because of their mundane, self-absorbed lives that they would think someone like me is an extremist. That’s my answer.”
  • Trewhella did not respond to over a dozen attempts to set up a second interview. He did not answer written questions by email and refused a certified letter containing them.

What did experts tell you about Trewhella?

  • Frederick Clarkson, a senior research analyst at Political Research Associates, which studies threats to democracy and human rights, has tracked Trewhella for decades. Clarkson said, “All of those county commissioners and mayors and whatnot who are entertaining this stuff, they’re putting people’s lives and the entirety of civil order at risk by playing footsie with Matt Trewhella.”
  • Another extremism researcher, Devin Burghart, said, “I think that the public needs to know that he’s a dangerous theocrat, who would fundamentally alter the United States in irreparable ways that would harm many, including women, people of color and the LGBTQ community.” Burghart is president of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, which tracks the far right. (snip-More)

https://www.propublica.org/article/investigating-matthew-trewhella-wisconsin-pastor

House kills child online safety bills that could’ve hurt LGBTQ+ kids & allies

Progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez opposed the bill.
By  
The man plays computer games at home. Young guy is bored during online learning. Neon light in the evening. Weekend at home at the screen.The boy lost, was tired and upset.

Photo: Shutterstock

Despite passing in the Senate earlier this week, the Kid’s Online Safety Act (KOSA) is reportedly dead in the U.S. House after progressives, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), worried that it would possible censor LGBTQ+ content. Some Republicans also opposed the bill, stating that it would violate free speech protections for social media platforms and their users.

KOSA would have mandated that social media companies take measures to prevent recommending any content that promotes mental health disorders (like eating disorders, drug use, self-harm, sexual abuse, and bullying) unless minors specifically search for such content. Opponents worried that Republican attorneys general who see LGBTQ+ identities as harmful forms of mental illness would use KOSA’s provisions to censor queer web content and prosecute platforms that provide access to it.

“KOSA was a poorly written bill that would have made kids less safe,” said one of the bill’s most vocal opponents, Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, a nonprofit that protects human rights in the digital age. “It’s good that this unconstitutional censorship bill is dead for now, but I am not breathing a sigh of relief.”

“KOSA was always too controversial to succeed, and divided our coalition,” Greer added. “If we want to take on Big Tech and win, we have to quickly regroup and make a plan for next Congress. We need strong privacy, antitrust, and algorithmic justice legislation that address the harms of Big Tech without endangering free expression and human rights.”

Many other groups opposed the bill, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the LGBT Technology Partnership, as well as LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations in six states.

While KOSA passed in the Senate earlier this week in a 93-1 vote, three senators voted against the bills: Ron Wyden (D-OR), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Rand Paul (R-KY) — all three made statements explaining why.

Wyden specifically said he voted against the bills because he worried a future administration could use the legislation to “pressure companies to censor gay, trans, and reproductive health information,” The Hill reported.

Lee said, “This legislation empowers the [Federal Trade Commission (FTC)] to censor any content it deems to cause ‘harm,’ ‘anxiety,’ or ‘depression,’ in a way that could (and most likely would) be used to censor the expression of political, religious, and other viewpoints disfavored by the FTC.”

Paul wrote in a recent Louisville Courier Journal opinion article, “KOSA would impose an unprecedented duty of care on internet platforms to design their sites to mitigate and prevent harms…. This requirement will not only stifle free speech, but it will deprive Americans of the benefits of our technological advancements.”

KOSA was introduced by anti-LGBTQ+ Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who said that one of the bill’s top priorities is to protect children from “the transgender in this culture.” Blackburn’s office told LGBTQ Nation that her comment had been “taken out of context” and wasn’t related to KOSA. Nevertheless, the anti-LGBTQ+ conservative think tank Heritage Foundation has also said it wishes to use the law to “guard” kids against the “harms of… transgender content.”

Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, said, “KOSA compounds nationwide attacks on young peoples’ right to learn and access information, on and offline. As state legislatures and school boards across the country impose book bans and classroom censorship laws, the last thing students and parents need is another act of government censorship deciding which educational resources are appropriate for their families.”

Reblog from Janet Logan

Thank you, Janet! I was playing with a post about this, and you made my job easy!

Trans women competing in the 2024 Olympics?

Followup article on Vivian Wilson

I was gonna snip it, but I couldn’t find a good place to stop, and then I was at the end. Here it is:

By David Ingram

Vivian Jenna Wilson, the transgender daughter of Elon Musk, said Thursday in her first interview that he was an absent father who was cruel to her as a child for being queer and feminine.

Wilson, 20, in an exclusive interview with NBC News, responded to comments Musk made Monday about her and her transgender identity. On social media and in an interview posted online, Musk said she was “not a girl” and was figuratively “dead,” and he alleged that he had been “tricked” into authorizing trans-related medical treatment for her when she was 16. 

Wilson said that Musk hadn’t been tricked and that, after initially having hesitated, he knew what he was doing when he agreed to her treatment, which required consent from her parents.

Musk’s recent statements crossed a line, she said. 

“I think he was under the assumption that I wasn’t going to say anything and I would just let this go unchallenged,” Wilson said in a phone interview. “Which I’m not going to do, because if you’re going to lie about me, like, blatantly to an audience of millions, I’m not just gonna let that slide.” 

Wilson said that, for as long as she could remember, Musk hasn’t been a supportive father. She said he was rarely present in her life, leaving her and her siblings to be cared for by their mother or by nannies even though Musk had joint custody, and she said Musk berated her when he was present. 

“He was cold,” she said. “He’s very quick to anger. He is uncaring and narcissistic.” 

Wilson said that, when she was a child, Musk would harass her for exhibiting feminine traits and pressure her to appear more masculine, including by pushing her to deepen her voice as early as elementary school. 

“I was in fourth grade. We went on this road trip that I didn’t know was actually just an advertisement for one of the cars — I don’t remember which one — and he was constantly yelling at me viciously because my voice was too high,” she said. “It was cruel.” 

Musk didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Wilson and her twin brother were born to Musk’s first wife, author Justine Musk. The couple divorced in 2008, and Wilson said her parents shared custody between their homes in the Los Angeles area. 

Musk, 53, is among the wealthiest people in the world through his stakes in Tesla, where he’s CEO, and in SpaceX, which he founded. He has also become a significant political figure, having endorsed former President Donald Trump this month for another term in the White House. Musk has 12 children, including Wilson. 

Now a college student studying languages, Wilson has never granted an interview before and has largely stayed out of public view. She did, however, attract attention in 2022 when she sought court approval in California to change her name and, in the process, denounced her father. 

“I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form,” she said in the court filing. 

She told NBC News that at the time, she was surprised by the media attention to the court filing, which she submitted when she was 18. She said in the interview that she stands by what she wrote, though she said she might have tried to be more eloquent had she known the coverage it would get. 

Wilson said that she hadn’t spoken to Musk in about four years and that she refused to be defined by him. 

“I would like to emphasize one thing: I am an adult. I am 20 years old. I am not a child,” she said. “My life should be defined by my own choices.” 

Musk threw a spotlight on Wilson on Monday by speaking about their relationship in a video interview with psychologist and conservative commentator Jordan Peterson streamed live on X, saying he didn’t support Wilson’s gender identity. 

“I lost my son, essentially,” Musk said. He used Wilson’s birth name, also known as a deadname for transgender people, and said she was “dead, killed by the woke mind virus.” 

And in a post on X, Musk said Monday that Wilson was “born gay and slightly autistic” and that, at age 4, she fit certain gay stereotypes, such as loving musicals and using the exclamation “fabulous!” to describe certain clothing. Wilson told NBC News that the anecdotes aren’t true, though she said she did act stereotypically feminine in other ways as a child. 

Wilson also addressed Musk’s recent comments in a series of posts Thursday on the social media app Threads. 

“He doesn’t know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn’t there,” she wrote. “And in the little time that he was I was relentlessly harassed for my femininity and queerness.”

“I’ve been reduced to a happy little stereotype,” she continued. “I think that says alot about how he views queer people and children in general.” 

In recent years, Musk has taken a hard–right turn into conservative politics and has been waging a campaign against transgender people and policies designed to support them. This month, he said he was pulling his businesses out of California to protest a new state law that bars schools from requiring that trans kids be outed to their parents.

On X, Musk has for years criticized transgender rights, including medical treatments for trans-identifying minors, and the use of pronouns if they are different from what would be used at birth. He has promoted anti-trans content and called for arresting people who provide trans care to minors. 

After Musk bought X, then known as Twitter, in 2022, he rolled back the app’s protections for trans people, including a ban on using deadnames. 

Musk told Peterson that Wilson’s gender transition has been the motivation for his push into conservative politics. 

“I vowed to destroy the woke mind virus after that, and we’re making some progress,” he said. 

Wilson was also mentioned in a biography of Musk by author Walter Isaacson — a book that she told NBC News was inaccurate and unfair to her. The book refers to her politics as “radical Marxism,” quoting Musk’s sister-in-law Christiana Musk, but Wilson said she’s not a Marxist, though she said she does oppose wealth inequality. The book also calls her by her middle name, Jenna. 

Wilson said Isaacson never reached out to her directly ahead of publication. In a phone interview Thursday, Isaacson said he had reached out to Wilson through family members. 

Christiana Musk didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Wilson told NBC News that for years she had considered speaking out about Musk’s behavior as a parent and as a person but that she could no longer remain silent after his comments Monday. 

She said she had never received an explanation for why her father spent so little time with her and her siblings — behavior that she now views as strange. 

“He was there, I want to say, maybe 10% of the time. That’s generous,” she said. “He had half custody, and he fully was not there.” 

“It was just a fact of life at the time, so I don’t think I realized just how abnormal of an experience it was,” she added.

Wilson said she came out twice in life: once as gay in eighth grade and a second time as transgender when she was 16. She said that she doesn’t recall Musk’s response the first time and that she wasn’t present when Musk heard from others that she was transgender, because by then the pandemic had started and she was living full-time with her mother. 

“She’s very supportive. I love her a lot,” Wilson said of her mom.

The pandemic was a chance to escape Musk’s cruelty, she said. 

“When Covid hit, I was like, ‘I’m not going over there,’” she said. “It was basically very lucky timing.” 

Musk told Peterson in the interview that he had been “tricked” into signing documents authorizing transgender-related medical treatment for Wilson — an allegation Wilson said isn’t true. 

“I was essentially tricked into signing documents for one of my older boys,” Musk said, using her birth name.

“This was before I had really any understanding of what was going on, and we had Covid going on,” he said, adding that he was told she might commit suicide.

Wilson said that, in 2020, when she was still a minor at 16, she wanted to start treatment for severe gender dysphoria but needed the consent of both parents under California law. She said that her mother was supportive but that Musk initially wasn’t. She said she texted him about it for a while. 

“I was trying to do this for months, but he said I had to go meet with him in person,” she said. “At that point, it was very clear that we both had a very distinct disdain for each other.” 

When she eventually went and gave him the medical forms, she said, he read them at least twice, once with her and then again on his own, before he signed them. 

“He was not by any means tricked. He knew the full side effects,” she said. 

She said she took puberty blockers before she switched to hormone-replacement therapy — treatments that she said were lifesaving for her and other transgender people. 

“They save lives. Let’s not get that twisted,” she said. “They definitely allowed me to thrive.” 

She said she believed the requirements to obtain such treatments remain onerous, with teenagers pressured to say they’re at extreme risk of self-harm before they’ll be approved. She said she felt judged by Musk and Peterson, in the Monday interview, for not being at a high enough risk in their eyes. 

“I have been basically put into a point where, to a group of people, I have to basically prove whether or not I was suicidal or not to warrant medically transitioning,” she said. “It’s absolutely mind-boggling.” 

David Ingram

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-transgender-daughter-vivian-wilson-interview-rcna163665

Daily Wire Host: “Women Cannot Care For Themselves”

Daily Wire Host: “Women Cannot Care For Themselves”

Forgot if I posted this one already.   Hugs.  Scottie

July 29, 2024 Christianists, Trump cultists

 

“Monogamy, one per customer, is a really good basis for a society. However, it goes against the gorilla code, and the gorilla code is written into our DNA. We’re somehow related. I’m not saying we evolved from gorillas, but we’re related to them. We’re not that far away from them. The men want lots of women, so the strongest man wants all the women, and the women want the strongest man. That is the way evolution has designed us.

“So the strong have to take back the women. They want to take back the women from a system that is free. A system that is free is going to be a monogamous system. That’s the way that works because it is the best system for freedom. It means everybody gets something. Right? All the women get a man. All the men get a woman — as close as we can come to that.

“Women hate the idea that they can’t take care of themselves, but women cannot take care of themselves. They’re smaller, weaker. Men are stronger. Men are mean. They’re more aggressive. They will take them over. They’ll do it anytime they can, anywhere they can. They will abuse them. They will hurt them.

“Women have to come up with different strategies for survival than men do. Right? Men buff up, they get tough, they study karate, they learn how to fight. Women can do all those things, and they still there still is going to be a man who can take them down. Women have to find different ways of being safe, and one of those ways is finding a man to protect them.” – Daily Wire host Andrew Klavan.

Klavan first appeared here in 2014 when he declared that gays should “thank the Bible and Jesus Christ for the fact that you even conceive of yourself as creatures with rights.”

 

Peace & Justice history 7/31:


July 31, 1896
The National Association of Colored Women (NACW) was established in Washington, D.C. Its two leading members were Josephine Ruffin and Mary Church Terrell. Founders also included some of the most renowned African-American women educators, community leaders, and civil-rights activists in America, including Harriet Tubman, Frances E.W. Harper, Margaret Murray Washington, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett.
Mary Church Terrell
The original intention of the organization was “to furnish evidence of the moral, mental and material progress made by people of colour through the efforts of our women.” However, over the next ten years the NACW became involved in campaigns favoring women’s suffrage and opposing lynching and Jim Crow laws. By the time the United States entered the First World War, membership had reached 300,000.
The NACW and its founders  https://spartacus-educational.com/USAnacw.htm , https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_org_nacw.html
July 31, 198625,000 people rallied in Namibia for freedom from South African colonial rule. In June, 1971 the International Court of Justice had ruled the South African presence in Namibia to be illegal. Eventually, open elections for a 72-member Constituent Assembly were held under U.N. supervision in November, 1989. Three months later Namibia gained its independence, and maintains it today.More on Namibia’s independence  http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_namibia.html
Namibian flag
July 31, 1991
The United States and the Soviet Union, represented by President George H.W. Bush and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as START I. It was the first agreement to actually reduce (by 25-35%) and verify both countries’ stockpiles of nuclear weapons at equal aggregate levels in strategic offensive arms.
The Soviet Union dissolved several months later, but Russia and the U.S. met their goals by December, 2001. Three other former republics of the U.S.S.R., Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine, have eliminated these weapons from their territory altogether.
Comprehensive info from the Federation of American Scientists: https://nuke.fas.org/control/start1/index.html

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjuly.htm#july31

Reblog Does Anyone Know Where I Set My Coffee?

Trump Attack Ads Begin

“Remarks to Women for Harris National Organizing Call

“Bad night for mascara, great night for democracy.”

Charlotte Clymer Jul 30, 2024

Last night, I was honored and delighted to join a phenomenal group of brilliant leaders and hundreds of thousands of women across the country in support of the Vice President on the first Women for Harris National Organizing Call.

You can watch the organizing call in its entirety right here, and I strongly recommend doing so.

Speakers included Women for Harris Director Rhonda Foxx, Sen. Laphonza Butler, Chelsea Clinton, Min Jin Lee, Yvette Nicole Brown, Shannon Watts, Ai-Jen Poo, Glynda Carr, and so many more.

I honestly did not expect to cry so much, but when Ms. Lee began telling her story and teared up, I completely lost it. By the time Ms. Clinton reminded us all of the history of women seeking the White House, I was a mess.

It was a bad night for mascara and a great night for democracy.

Below are my remarks:

Good evening!

My name is Charlotte Clymer, my pronouns are she/her, I’m a writer and activist, and I am so excited to be part of this historic gathering of women across the country.

Now, look, I’m not gonna repeat to y’all what the brilliant and eloquent women who spoke before me stated, nor do I have the eloquence and brilliance of the women who will speak over the remainder of this evening.

I’m just gonna tell y’all a quick story about why I proudly support Vice President Harris.

I am a proud American, a proud Texan, a proud military veteran, a proud trans woman, and a proud Democrat.

And I have found that there a lot of folks, including Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, who want to place me in a specific box.

They say I’m too queer to be a proud military veteran.

They say a trans woman like me can’t be a Christian and a strong person of faith as I am.

They say women like me don’t belong in America.

Well, here’s what I have to say to that: thank goodness our leader, Vice President Harris, has common sense and believes no American, no human being, belongs in a box.

A little over four years ago, a number of rightwing extremists took a picture of me from a public event and attempted to harass me online. They wanted me to be ashamed of how I look as a trans woman.

Now, just like the women I admire—women like my grandmother, women like Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett from my home state of Texas, women like Vice President Harris—am I going to give these sad and insecure people that kinda power over me?

No.

I don’t have time for that. I love how I look. I know I’m beautiful.

So, I wrote a thread explaining that, and I offered an open hope that these sad and insecure people will someday have the kind of peace and comfort in their own skin as I have in mine.

She fights for the military veteran who comes back from war with horrific wounds. She fights for the woman turned away from life-saving abortion access. She fights for the public school teacher who’s overworked and underpaid. She fights for every child, every senior, every single American. She fights for all of us.

One of the first public figures to respond to that thread was then-Senator Kamala Harris. (emph. mine-A)

She gave me support. She gave me encouragement. She made me feel seen. And in that moment, she sent a clear message that supporting her means supporting the basic concept that all of us are worthy to be who we are authentically.

I want to be clear: there were no incentives for her here. I hadn’t endorsed her. I hadn’t talked with her campaign. It wasn’t like she was gonna fundraise off this moment.

She did it because Vice President Harris is the kind of leader who fights for every American.

Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are gonna throw everything they got at her—every cruel remark, every disgusting sexist and racist trope, every bit of vile—and they’re gonna find out the hard way that it just isn’t enough.

And why is that? Because we have a clear strategy here. All we have to do is follow the example of Vice President Harris. She is a leader who builds bridges, who invites tough conversations, who always embraces discomfort as a gift for growth.

If we follow her example, if we make every phone call, if we knock on every door, if we invite tough conversations with our friends and family and neighbors who are on the fence in this election, I guarantee you, on everything I hold dear, that Kamala Harris will be the 47th President of the United States.

Thank god this is our leader. Let’s follow her example. Let’s go win this thing.

To find out how to volunteer and elect our first woman president and save democracy from Trump and Vance and Project 2025, text WOMEN to 30330.

And donate to the historic and exciting campaign of Vice President Harris right here: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/charlotteforharris

https://charlotteclymer.substack.com/p/remarks-to-women-for-harris-national?r=1pk2l&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

How America’s Sex Education—and Oversexed Culture—Continues to Fail Women

Natalie Lampert on Moving the Conversation About Controlling Women’s Bodies Beyond Abortion

By Natalie Lampert

July 19, 2024

How America’s Sex Education—and Oversexed Culture—Continues to Fail Women

“The #GenderEqualOlympics Are Historic — But The Games Aren’t Close To Fair”

SYDNEY LONEY LAST UPDATED JULY 24, 2024, 9:30 AM

Medals aren’t the only thing that matters at Paris 2024. With Personal Best, we’re going beyond the scoreboards to champion the game changers and spark conversations about what it takes to make competitive sport truly fair play.

Trigger warning: This article references disordered eating.

After a three-hour ride to a lake outside the Olympic Village, teams of rowers from around the world stepped off their buses, in need of a bathroom break before they took to the water to train. The Korean women’s team was first in line for the porta-potties — until athletes from another country’s men’s team cut in front of them. 

“It was as though the women weren’t even there,” recalls former rower and Olympian Angela Schneider, who went on to win silver for Canada at those games, and is now director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies at Western University in London, Ont., Canada. “I was so angry. A group of us female athletes tried to knock over the porta-potty with the first guy in it. We weren’t successful, but we gave it a good shake.”

This was back at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Forty years later, women aren’t so easily ignored in the sporting world. Attitudes have changed since the ’80s, when only 23% of athletes competing in LA were women, and rowing was considered a men’s sport (“People used to call us ‘sir,’” Schneider recalls). In fact, the Paris 2024 Games will make history as the very first “gender-equal” Olympics: Out of the 10,500 athletes competing, there will be an even split between men and women.

The IOC seemed pretty pleased with itself back in March when it announced (just ahead of International Women’s Day, of course) this “monumental achievement,” dubbing Paris the #GenderEqualOlympics. “We are about to celebrate one of the most important moments in the history of women at the Olympic Games, and in sport overall,” IOC president Thomas Bach proclaimed. (An Olympics logo designed for the milestone — featuring a stereotypically feminine face, lipstick included — has riled the internet, with widespread memes that it would better suit a dating app.)

“The IOC is pretty good at tooting its own horn, and at every games we see a version of this celebration of gender equality. It’s not new. DUNJA ANTUNOVIC, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SPORT SOCIOLOGY”

But even though this year’s even split of men and women athletes marks progress, there’s still a lot of “porta-potty shaking” left to do. Tokyo 2020 was also celebrated for its 48% (almost) gender parity. Now, four years later, all we have to show for progress is another 2%. It’s kind of hard to get excited about a hashtag when we’ve heard it all before.(snip)

Inclusive language is one thing; inclusion itself is another. Another strategy the IOC has used to address gender inequality at the games has been to boost women’s participation by increasing the number of mixed-gender sports, like triathlon, and adding sports that historically excluded women, particularly combat sports. For instance, women’s boxing (finally) debuted in 2012 — and, as a result, 20-year-old Alyssa Mendoza from Caldwell, ID, will be taking her shot at an Olympic medal in Paris for Team USA. 

“I think that sometimes the hard work that women boxers do gets discredited, and so I’m really glad we have this platform where we can show our skills,” says Mendoza. Even so, she still gets the occasional “Oh, you’re a female boxer? You’re going to mess up your pretty face!” comment, but she uses those moments to clear up misconceptions. “Boxing isn’t like a Rocky movie,” she says. “It’s not bloody and gory and dangerous. It’s a beautiful sport.”

Beyond stereotypes around certain disciplines, the inherently gendered nature of most elite sports — that is, women and men competing separately — means that athletes who don’t fit neatly into the binary face barriers to participation. The IOC allows individual sports governing bodies to set their own policies for trans athletes, for example, and at least 10 Olympic sports, including cycling, rugby, and rowing, restrict trans athletes from competing. In 2021, the IOC announced a framework laying out its principles for athlete inclusion and non-discrimination, including its stance that athletes should be allowed to compete in the category that aligns with their self-determined gender identity. But the framework is non-binding, so how much real progress we’ll see remains an open question.

The world of sport is rife with gender bias, regardless of which gender you happen to identify with. Paris 2024 will be the first year that men’s teams are eligible to compete in artistic swimming (formerly called synchronized swimming), for instance. Athlete Megumi Field has chatted with her team about how cool it is to be competing in a so-called gender-equal Olympics, but is quick to flag the derision that the men she trains with have faced. “This is not just a ‘girl’s’ sport,” she says. “For us, gender equity conversations are also around the importance of including men.”

Although 28 out of 32 sports will be fully gender-equal in Paris, many disciplines are still characterized as “men’s sports,” and there are lingering discrepancies based on the age-old belief that women are the weaker sex. (snip)

Yes, gender parity in Paris is a sign of progress. But we’re still far from the finish line in the race to full equality, both at the games and in the larger world of sport. Only then can we truly embrace #GenderEqualOlympics — let’s just hope it doesn’t take us another 40 years to get there.

If you are struggling with an eating disorder and are in need of support, please call the National Eating Disorders Association Helpline at 1-800-931-2237. For a 24-hour crisis line, text “NEDA” to 741741. 

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2024/07/11750016/paris-olympics-2024-gender-equal