MSNBC news anchor Stephanie Ruhle is being credited with verbally eviscerating the Republican governor of West Virginia for recently signing an anti-transgender bill into law that would bar trans kids from playing on sports teams that match their real gender rather than what they were assigned at birth. Governor Jim Justice tried to defend his actions by claiming that allowing trans kids to play sports on the right team is “unfair” to the other children, particularly cisgender girls, but Ruhle had a pointed question for him.
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“Can you name one example of a transgender child trying to gain an unfair competitive advantage at a school there in West Virginia?”
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Justice tried to dodge this by saying that he doesn’t “have that experience exactly to myself right now,” but Ruhle wasn’t having it.
“Not yourself, your state, sir,” Ruhle interrupted. “Can you give me one example of a transgender child trying to get an unfair advantage, just one, in your state? You signed a bill about it.”
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The answer, of course, was “no,” but Justice again tried to deflect by claiming that hypothetically, “boys” would have a clear advantage when “playing against girls.” There has been a long-running public assumption that boys and men are more physically capable than women and girls, but of course, trans girls are not boys, and in reality, there has been no evidence of such a thing ever becoming a problem when it comes to trans kids playing sports.
As Ruhle points out, West Virginia has many other real problems that it could be worrying about right now.
“Why would you take your time to do this?” she asked. “Let’s talk about other things that I can give you examples of in your state. According to U.S. News and World Report, West Virginia ranks 45th in education, 47th in healthcare, 48th on the economy, and 50th in infrastructure. If you cannot name one single example for me of a child doing this, why would you make this a priority?”
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Justice’s excuse for that is that he didn’t make it a priority, it just popped onto his desk and he signed it. You might hope that the governor of an entire state would take the time to do some actual research into an issue before signing something into law, but according to Justice, if he believes that something sounds unfair, he’s perfectly willing to sign a law without evidence that there is any existing unfairness.
He also demonstrated a severe ignorance as to the number of transgender people in the U.S.
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“Listen, I think we only have 12 kids maybe in our state that are transgender-type kids,” he said.
According to a 2017 survey, about 0.7 percent of teens age 13-17 identify as transgender. The most current population estimate for West Virginia is 1,767,860 according to the World Population Review. This would mean that there are approximately 12,375 trans teens under the age of 18 in Justice’s state.
There’s a real good chance that West Virginia has hundreds of trans kids, if not more, but definitely more than 12.
Regardless, Justice made it clear that he doesn’t really care about the issue but still cared enough to essentially ban trans kids from sports (unless they want to increase their risk of being bullied and experiencing gender dysphoria) because he imagines some cisgender girls might not win at sports quite as much. Ruhle ended the interview by making it clear how she feels about this sentiment.
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“Alright sir, thank you, and please come back when beyond anecdotal feelings as a coach you can show me evidence where those young women are being disadvantaged in your state, because I can show you evidence about how ranking that low in education is disadvantaging young women, and men, in West Virginia.”
*First Published: April 30, 2021, 1:46 pm
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