But it’s important info, nauseating though it is. Also, click on through to the story, as everything I copy on their page to paste here turns into the title, with “Read more at:” and the link. So, my apologies, but this is a thing that we need to know.
Not about bathrooms, but about testing women. Either test everyone, or take people’s word for it, when reporting is required.And all should prepare for the consequences of this. Women will need more protection from molestation than before, and transpeople need to specifically have that protection, as well. I think the XY carriers will be fine, of course, but they should be tested, too.I mean, who knows, right? And this should not happen in US communities at all, but the door will be wide open.
On Thursday, theย International Olympic Committee announcedย that it would ban transgender women and many cisgender women athletes from competing in women’s events and institute mandatory genetic screening of all female athletes. The decision is significantโthe Olympics has allowed transgender women to compete since 2004, yet none has ever won a medal, and only a single transgender woman has ever competed: weightlifter Laurel Hubbard of New Zealand, who failed to place at the 2021 Tokyo Games. The ban applies to all sports, including those whereย no male performance advantage exists, and will require every woman to undergo a genetic test to participate. It will also exclude many cisgender women who produce elevated testosterone due to genetic or medical conditions,ย such as two-time Olympic champion Caster Semenya. And it is not the first time the Olympics has subjected women to mass sex testingโthe last time it did,ย from 1992 to 1999, the results were disastrous, with cisgender women discovering they had intersex conditions they never knew about, leading to public humiliation, career destruction, andย at least one suicideย before such testing was abolished.
Under the new policy, every woman seeking to compete in a female event at the Olympics or any IOC competition must undergo a one-time SRY gene screeningโa cheek swab or blood test that detects the presence of a gene on the Y chromosome associated with male sex development. The test is similar to the one the IOC abolished 27 years ago after it produced disastrous human consequences. Because the screening identifies the presence of XY genetics, it will target not only transgender women but also intersex peopleโincluding cisgender women who carry a genetic condition that some argue makes them “male” despite having been born with a vagina and uterus, raised as girls, and having lived their entire lives as women. In at least 15 documented cases, women with 46,XY karyotypesโthe same genetics this test screens forโhave successfully carried pregnancies to term and given birth, including women with XY karyotypes that naturally produce testosterone. Under the IOC’s new framework, a woman who has been pregnant and delivered a child could be classified as male and barred from competition for failing this test.
Genetic sex testing was introduced at the Olympics in 1992, but it existed for only a short time. In the two Summer Games it coveredโBarcelona in 1992 and Atlanta in 1996โover 20 female athletes who were assigned female at birth, had lived their entire lives as women, and had female anatomy were told they were genetically “male” due to conditions they had never known about. The consequences were disastrous. Dr. Myron Genel, a Yale physician who was a prominent critic of the program, reported that the testing was “highly discriminatory” and caused “emotional trauma and social stigmatization” for women with intersex conditions who had been screened out of competition. For athletes from countries where being labeled male could carry severe social or physical consequences, the disclosure was not merely humiliatingโit was dangerous. Indian swimmer Pratima Gaonkar died by suicide after her failed sex verification test became public and she was subjected to blackmail attempts; Indian runner Santhi Soundarajan attempted suicide after being stripped of her Asian Games silver medal. The testing was abolished in 1999.
The ban also applies to sports where a male genetic advantage is dubious or nonexistent. In rifle shooting, ESPN reported that women are “as good as, if not fractionally better than, men” in 10m air rifle, and yet these athletes will still have to prove their femininity with a genetic test. In sailing, the competition was mixed for nearly a century at the Olympics, from 1900 to 1988. In archery, men and women shoot the same 70-meter Olympic distance and the world records are extremely close. In December 2025, women’s Olympic champion An San exactly matched the men’s indoor qualification round record of 599 in Taipei. And outside the Olympics, transgender bans have spread even furtherโto darts, pool, disc golf, competitive dancing, and even chess.
The scientific evidence, meanwhile, does not support the blanket ban the IOC has imposed. A 2026 meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Sports Medicineโthe most comprehensive to date, drawing on 52 studies and nearly 6,500 participantsโfound that while transgender women on hormone therapy for one to three years retained higher absolute lean body mass than cisgender women, there were no statistically significant differences in upper-body strength, lower-body strength, or aerobic capacity. The researchers concluded that “the convergence of transgender women’s functional performance with cisgender women, particularly in strength and aerobic capacity, challenges assumptions about inherent athletic advantages” and that the current evidence “does not justify blanket bans.” A separate review in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism found that after two years of hormone therapy, no advantage was observed for physical performance measured by running time, and that muscle strength corrected for lean mass, hemoglobin, and cardiovascular capacity were no different from cisgender women. No study has demonstrated that transgender women on hormone therapy for more than two years retain a measurable performance advantage in any specific sport.
Some intersex athletes who would be impacted by the decision are already speaking out. Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was assigned female at birth in South Africa and has naturally elevated testosterone levels due to a difference in sex development. On Sunday, she expressed her disappointment with IOC President Kirsty Coventry, a fellow African woman and former Olympic swimmer. “Personally, for her as a leader, she’s an African, I’m sure she understands how, you know, we as Africans, we are coming from, as a global South, you know, you cannot control genetics,” Semenya said at a press conference in Cape Town. “For me personally, for her being a woman coming from Africa, knowing how, you know, African women or women in the global South are affected by that, of course it causes harm.โ
โReintroducing sex testing brings the IOC back to policy that it had discontinued exactly thirty years ago. Back then, they rightfully concluded that sex testing was scientifically inconclusive and caused considerable harm to athletes. Then, in 2021, they approved a Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination to best support trans athletes and athletes with sex variations. Now, they are retreating from their own decisions and ignoring the recommendations of various UN bodies, the World Medical Association, and athletes worldwide. But the evidence is clear: sex testing exposes women and girls to privacy violations, public humiliation, and abuse. And it is profoundly discriminatory, too. No one is asking men and boys to undergo these tests. Women and girls shouldnโt either,โ said Gurchaten Sandhu, ILGA World Director of Programmes.
The policy takes effect at the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Games and is not retroactive. Affected athletes are expected to bring challenges before the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, as Caster Semenya has done with previous eligibility rules. Over 100 civil society organizations, including the Sport & Rights Alliance, ILGA World, and Humans of Sport, have called on the IOC to reverse the decision.
In February 2026, a rumor spread that Bo French, a Republican candidate for the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas, wanted to deport Native Americans โ people indigenous to the U.S. Several social media posts made the claim, including on Facebook, where one user said French had called for the deportation of โthird world savagesโ including Native Americans.
Some posts linked to a Feb. 10, 2026, article inย Texas Monthly, which included a line that read, โOne of Frenchโs favorite phrases is โthird world savagesโโwhich he has applied to Afghan asylum seekers, Muslims, and even Native Americans, who he also wants deported.โ It is true that French called for the deportation of Native Americans. He did so in an Oct. 10, 2025, post on X.
Read theย full article. French, who is allied with two far-right Christian nationalist fracking billionaire pastors, last appeared here in November 2024 when he declared that Democrats are โretarded unmanly homos.โ He appeared here in September 2024 when he lost a court battle to ban early voting on college campuses.
A former instructor for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Monday accused the agency of dramatically slashing training standards for new officers and lying to Congress about it as the Trump administration seeks to rapidly expand its mass deportation operation.
Ryan Schwank, who resigned from his job at an ICE academy in Georgia last week, told congressional Democrats at a hearing that the agency eliminated 240 hours of โvital classesโ from a mandatory 580-hour training program, including instruction about the legal boundaries for the use of force, how to safely handle firearms, and the proper way to detain and arrest immigrants.
โLaw enforcement is a deadly serious biz. It is not a place for shortcuts,โ Schwank said. โDeficient training can and will get people killed. โฆ ICE is lying to Congress and the American people about the steps it is taking to ensure that 12,000 officers can faithfully uphold the Constitution and perform their jobs.โ
Ryan Schwank, a former ICE academy instructor, testified in front of Congress today about constitutional violations.โAt the academy, we took out the class that tells the officers that they have an oath to the Constitution.โ
Former ICE agent: My first day training new cadets, I received secretive orders to teach them to violate the Constitution by entering homes without a warrant. I watched ICE cut classes that teach our legal system, firearms training, use of force, lawful arrests, and the limits of officers' authority
Former ICE trainer Ryan Schwank is telling Congress that agents are being trained to ignore the Constitution. "I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution when I joined ICE. I followed it when I resigned. The legally required training program at the ICE academy is deficient, defective, and broken."
Director Lyons looked me in the eyes and said ICE was receiving proper training.Now a whistleblower says officials are lying about how much training new recruits actually get.Theyโre cutting corners and covering up. We need real answers and accountability. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-whi…
Jeff Tiedrich uses blue language. It’s easily ignored if you don’t care for blue language; this is some great coverage of yesterday.Also, Bluesky posts don’t embed easily on WP, so really, this is better on the page. Just click on the link directly below. It’s also mostly here, but you’ll have to click on the Bluesky posts to see the excellent photos; they didn’t embed.
over eight million of us gathered peacefully coast to coast, to rise up as one and convey a singular message: fuck you, you fucking fuck โ youโre not our king.
wait, did I say coast to coast? no, it was the entire world telling Donny Convict to fuck straight off.
(just click the link to see the post on Bluesky. How it works, I guess. -A)
HAPPENING NOW: A HUGE crowd has gathered in London, England for a protest against the far right in coordination with the No Kings day protests in the US
In 1789, furious protesters stormed the Bastille in Paris. This marks the start of the French Revolution that put an end to the highly corrupt, rotten regime of aristocrats and the ultra rich. Yesterday, thousands joined a #NoKings protest at the Bastille.
โIโm so proud of you. you chased out of this state pure evil. you chased them out. you chased out the fun-size fascist Greg Bovino. you chased out that evil Kristi Noem. Kristi Noem is so evil, Iโm starting to think that that dog took his own life. just couldnโt take it. โis this my future? I need to get out. Iโm taking the goat with me.โโ
while millions of people were protesting the fucked-up reign of Mad King Donny, CPAC couldnโt even fill one small room. look at this clownfuckingly pathetic display.
itโs as if Sad Trombone became a real political party.
great optics, you guys. bravo. ten out of ten โ no notes.
fuck those fucking fucks. letโs go out with a bang. here are some of the best protest signs from around the country.
(Just go see it all. You’ll be sorry if you don’t!)Snip
and finally, once again, our unknown poet laureate from Ellsworth, Maine.
as for Sundowning Grandpa Bugfuck, he was unusually silent โ and nowhere to be seen. there were none of his usual protest-day batshit meltdowns on the feed of his crappy app. he couldnโt even be bothered to post AI slop of himself shitting on protesters, as he did last October.
he just spent the day holed up in Motel-a-Lago. according to his official schedule, the lazy fuck didnโt even bother to cheat at golf.
Iโve got a news flash for you, Donny: America is sick of you. aside from your brain-dead cultists who are too fucking stupid to understand whatโs going on, nobody voted for this shit.
nobody voted for the historic and stately East Wing to be demolished so that you can replace it with some vulgar Epstein Dance Hallโข โ and speaking of your dead pedo bestie, nobody voted for the continuing cover-up of a massive pedophile ring.
nobody voted for off-the-charts corruption and greed.
nobody voted for masked ICE thugs teargassing children, and murdering anyone who looks at them funny. nobody voted for innocent immigrants to be disappeared off the streets and shipped off to far-away slave-labor gulags.
nobody voted for the price of everything continuing to skyrocket โ especially when you promised bring all that shit down on Day One.
nobody voted for our allies to be insulted and ignored, or for Ukraine to be thrown to the wolves, or for Greenland to be perpetually harassed, or for Venezuela to become a vassal state.
and nobody voted for an unwinnable clusterfuck of a donโt-you-dare-call-it-a-war in Iran โ certainly not one that shut down the Strait of Hormuz, destabilized the entire Middle East, and sent the price crude through the roof.
guess what, Donny: youโre such a loathsome piece of shit that over eight million people took to the streets yesterday to deliver this singular message: fuck you, you fucking fuck โ youโre not our king, and you never will be.
This person Same is interviewing is from the Cato Institute.ย Sam and David talk about the bigotry and attempt to purify the country of non-white people.ย tRump and his racist administration claim to want to remove 100 million from the US.ย ย There is no where near that number of undocumented people in the country.ย That number is almost 1/3 of the US population.ย Undocumented immigrants were estimated at 14 million in 2023 at the highest.ย So where are the rest of these people coming from?ย Legal documented immigrants and non-white citizens born in the US.ย That is why they are rounding up brown people who immigrated here legally and why they are trying so hard to end birth right citizenship.ย The goal has become clear and it is scary to me.ย To cement the white majority for as long as possible and stop the slow decline of the white majority / rize of minority demographics.ย ย Stephen Miller and the other racists in tRump administration want an apartheid state like the former South African one was.ย They want no rights for non-whites.ย They want no non-whites in positions of authority. The administration is going after businesses and higher education for not prioritizing whites over any other group.ย They feel no white male is less qualified than any non-white.ย If a non-white person scored 95 and the white person scored 75, these racists feel the white person is still more qualified because of their skin color.ย The racists feel the only DEI that should be allowed is the promotion of white males over everyone else. Hugs
The game plan is clear and was used to accomplish the genocide of the LGBTQ+ from society in Russia.ย Attack the most vulnerable and smallest members of the LGBTQ+ trans people in the name of saving the most vulnerable, who are the little children espcailly little girlsย / daughters.ย Every study proves that the ones in real danger or under threat are not the kids but the trans people.ย ย Then use the momentum and rising bigotry to remove all rights and equality from the rest of the LGBQ+ based on the same lies.ย End goal is to create a straight cis country where the Christian white male is making the country safe / regressive enough for their bigoted view of Jesus to feel comfortable enough to return and pat them on their heads.ย Hugs
The Idaho Senate has widely passed a bill that would fine local and state governments for flying flags that arenโt on the Legislatureโs pre-approved list.
The billโs House sponsor, Rep. Ted Hill, an Eagle Republican, has said House Bill 561 is meant to target the city of Boise for flying an LGBTQ+ pride flag. Boiseโs City Council voted to declare the pride flag and the organ donor flag as official flags, in an apparent move to work around the Legislatureโs flag ban law passed last year.
The bill would add a $2,000 daily fine, per offending flag, to the flag ban law from last year, which lacked an enforcement process. The bill widely passed the House earlier this month. But since the Senate amended the bill, it must return to the House before it would go to Gov. Brad Little for final consideration.
Rep. Ted Hill [photo] appeared here yesterday for his successful bill that criminalizes using the โwrongโ bathroom. Violating that law would be a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison. A second offense within five years would be a felony, carrying up to a five-year prison sentence.
Hill appeared here in 2024 for his successful bill banning teachers from referring to students with their preferred pronouns.
Earlier this month, the Idaho House passed a resolution to petition the US Supreme Court on overturning Obergefell.
In February, the Idaho House advanced a bill to overturn all local LGBTQ rights ordinances statewide. Thirteen Idaho cities and counties, including Boise and its home county, have such laws on the books.
Project 2025 was very clear.ย The goal is to remove all representation of LGBTQ+ people from society.ย Pride flags are determined to be political incitement and agitation; media representation and books with even an LGBTQ+ character are called sexualizing children while the same with straight kids is not, and letting a child express how they deeply feel inside by letting them change their hairstyle and clothing is called child abuse while doing the discredited / harmful conversion therapy to force a person of any age to be straight and cis is considered to be healthy for the child. Liesย are spread constantly about puberty blockers by people who misrepresent what these medical studies show or only claim in fake medical studies that have no peer reviewed status by medical personnel in that field of study. The goal is to do what Russia, Hungary, and several other highly religious authoritarian countries have done, which is to wipe the existence of anything not straight and not cis from being. Iย don’t know if this is due to their being highly religious and wanting to force everyone in the country to live by their church doctrines or if they just are straight / cis so they don’t think if they don’t feel it that it can’t be true.ย I ran into that decades ago as a gay man with straight people claiming everyone was straight because they were and that was normal, but some people choose to be weird deviants and have bad types of sex.ย But if you ask them when they chose to be straight they think it is a stupid question as they never chose; they just were.ย Clips below.ย Hugs
โThey go in the bathroom theyโre supposed to, they upset people. If they go in the one that they now look like, theyโre breaking the law, which could include pretty severe penaltiesโ Guthrie told senators. โ โฆ We seem to be really focused on this space and ignoring the fact that there are people that are just like us, human beings, just like us. What are they supposed to do?โ
โDo I feel like going to jail today, or do I feel like being attacked?โ trans man testifies
The bill builds on a wave of anti-LGTBQ+ bills that the Legislature and the governor have approved in recent years.ย
โOver the last several years, legislators have gone from refusing to protect us to actively targeting us,โ Nikson Mathews, who serves as chair of the Idaho Democratic Queer Caucus,ย saidย at a news conference in February.
โEvery single day when Iโm out in public, I have to decide: Do I feel like going to jail today, or do I feel like being attacked,โ Mathews told lawmakers.ย
ย A bathroom sign as seen on March 16, 2026, at the State Capitol Building in Boise. (Photo by Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun)
The Idaho Legislature widely approved a bill that would criminalize โwillfullyโ entering public and government bathrooms and changing rooms designated for another sex.
The bill โ which heads to Gov. Brad Little for final consideration โย would effectively block transgender people from using their preferred public bathrooms in Idaho, expanding on the stateโs transgender bathroom ban in public schools.
House Bill 752 would create criminal misdemeanor and felony charges for people who โknowingly and willfullyโ enter a bathroom or changing room designated for the opposite sex, with some exceptions. The bill would apply in government-owned buildings and places of public accommodations, like private businesses.ย
A first offense would carry a misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in prison. A second offense within five years would be a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.
Only three states โ Utah, Florida and Kansas โย ย have criminal bansย on trans people using bathrooms that align with their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group.ย
In a statement, Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates โ Idaho called the bill โthe most extreme anti-transgender bathroom ban in the nation.โ
One Republican opposed the bill in the Senate
In the Idaho Senate, the bill passed on a near-party line 28-7 vote Friday, with all six Democrats opposing. One Republican,ย Sen. Jim Guthrie, from McCammon, broke with Republicans support of the bill.ย
He called legislation like it โharmful.โ
โThey go in the bathroom theyโre supposed to, they upset people. If they go in the one that they now look like, theyโre breaking the law, which could include pretty severe penaltiesโ Guthrie told senators. โ โฆ We seem to be really focused on this space and ignoring the fact that there are people that are just like us, human beings, just like us. What are they supposed to do?โ
Idaho Sen. Ben Toews, R-Coeur dโAlene, walks through the halls at the State Capitol building on Jan. 9, 2023. (Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun)
Bill sponsorย Sen. Ben Toews, R-Coeur dโAlene, told senators that the bill protects โcommon sense realities.โ
โThe Legislature has a fundamental duty to protect the bodily privacy and safety of Idaho citizens,โ Toews said. โHouse Bill 752 provides a clear, proactive tool to secure sex-separated private spaces in our state, while accommodating common-sense realities.โ
Once the bill is transmitted to Little, he has five days to decide on it. He has three options: sign it into law, veto it, or allow it to become law without his signature.ย
In the House, the billย passedย on a 54-15 vote earlier this month, with six Republicans joining the Houseโs nine Democrats in opposition.
โDo I feel like going to jail today, or do I feel like being attacked?โ trans man testifies
The bill builds on a wave of anti-LGTBQ+ bills that the Legislature and the governor have approved in recent years.ย
And for more than a decade, efforts to add anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people to state law have failed.ย
โOver the last several years, legislators have gone from refusing to protect us to actively targeting us,โ Nikson Mathews, who serves as chair of the Idaho Democratic Queer Caucus,ย saidย at a news conference in February.
Mathews, a trans man with a beard, told a House committee earlier this year that the bathroom bill would force him to use the womenโs restroom.ย
โEvery single day when Iโm out in public, I have to decide: Do I feel like going to jail today, or do I feel like being attacked,โ Mathews told lawmakers.ย
A 2025ย studyย by the UCLA School of Lawโs Williams Institute found โno evidence of increased harms to people who are not transgender when transgender people are allowed to use restrooms and other gendered facilities according to their identity.โ But when trans people are refused access to facilities that align with their gender, the study found that trans people report verbal harassment and physical assault.ย
Bill is about discrimination, Democratic senator says
Sen. Ron Taylor, a Democrat from Hailey, said the bill is about discrimination. He said constituents told him that theyโd move out of Idaho if it passed โ because it would throw their transgender children in jail.
Idaho state Sen. Ron Taylor, D-Hailey, enters the House of Representatives chamber for the governorโs State of the State Address on Jan. 12, 2026, at the State Capitol in Boise. (Photo by Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun)
โNow maybe thatโs what some of us want, is to chase a population thatโs marginalized out of Idaho,โ Taylor said. โBut thatโs not Idaho. Idaho was founded by a population that was marginalized.โ
Sen. Brian Lenney, a Republican from Nampa, said the bill is about keeping women and girls safe from having men in their spaces.ย
โTrans women arenโt women,โ saidย Sen. Joshua Kohl, a Republican from Twin Falls. โTheyโre men. And they need to be treated as such.โ
Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle, listens to proceedings during the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee meeting on Jan. 13, 2026, at the State Capitol Building in Boise. (Photo by Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun)
Sen. Jim Woodward,ย a Republican from Sagle in North Idaho, said the bill is largely borne out of an event where he said a man was found in a womenโs locker room in a YMCA in Sandpoint. He said heโd vote for the bill, but he had some reservations.
โWhat comes next and how much further do we venture inside of a private building?โ Woodward said. โI donโt support the punitive measures in this bill, but the policy does reflect the sentiment of my community, and so for that reason, I will support it. It is the best for the most.โ
Sen. Melissa Wintrow, a Boise Democrat, said she saw people crying after a recent committee hearing on the bill.
โThey were crying because they just didnโt feel as if they were human. That a simple little thing they had to do, like go to the bathroom, would have to be in a law,โ Wintrow said.ย
Idaho Fraternal Order of Police opposed the bill
The bill was opposed by some law enforcement groups and several transgender Idahoans.ย
The bill outlines several exceptions, including to give medical assistance, law enforcement assistance, and if someone โis in dire need of urinating or defecating and such facility is the only facility reasonably available at the time of the personโs use.โ
The Idaho Fraternal Order of Police flagged that exception as concerning.
โOfficers responding to a complaint would be placed in the difficult position of determining an individualโs biological sex in order to enforce the statute,โ Idaho Fraternal Order of Police President Bryan Lovellย wrote. โIn many circumstances, there is no clear or reasonable way for officers to make that determination without engaging in questioning or investigative actions that could be viewed as invasive and inappropriate.โ
Kyle Pfannenstiel
Kyle Pfannenstiel is a reporter for the Idaho Capital Sun, covering health care and state politics. He previously reported for the Post Register/Report for America, Idaho Education News and the Idaho Press. Kyle is a military brat who calls Idaho home. He has a bachelorโs degree in journalism and political science from University of Idaho.
Idaho Capital Sun is part ofย States Newsroom, the nationโs largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
Scottie's Playtime 