“I’m So Uncomfortable There Is a Girl!”
When Boys Refuse to Play Along with Trans Fiction in the Locker Room
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In the future, this dialogue might occur at a high school reunion:
First man: Remember the time that girl walked into our locker room?
Second man: OMG, you’re triggering me.
First man: And she videotaped us!
Second man: I freaked out.
First man, teasing the second man by imitating his voice: “Why is there a girl? I’m so uncomfortable there is a girl!”
Second man: Damn right.
First man: And she accused us of sexual harassment! Because you…
Second man: …called her a girl. Because she was a girl.
First man: That was so messed up.
Second man: Crazy. How did we survive that gender crap?
First man: At least our own kids don’t have to.
Second man: At least boys and girls are no longer forced to undress in front of each other.
First man: Let’s drink to that!
Here’s what happened in Virginia last month: A group of boys at Stone Bridge High School were getting dressed in the boys’ locker room. Which is for boys. Or used to be.
In walked a girl, and not for the first time. Why? Because she “identifies as a male” and Loudon County Public Schools (LCPS) allows students to use restrooms, locker rooms, and showers based on their “gender identity.”
Other kids are supposed to play along, pretending boys can be girls and vice versa. This is what philosopher Kathleen Stock calls trans fiction:1 The story that people can change sex; become both sexes or neither; or shift between the two sexes. There are countless real-world costs, usually borne by women, to acting as if this fantasy were true:
“Being immersed in the fiction that [certain males called] transwomen are “women” leads people to think that [those males] should be in women’s changing rooms, schools, dormitories, halls of residence, prisons, social groups, sports teams, rape crisis services, domestic violence shelters… Dedicated single-sex services and resources built painstakingly over years are now effectively dismantled.” –
On this day in May, the boys are not in the mood for fiction.
One asks, “There’s a girl in here? There’s a girl?”
Another says, “Why is there a girl? I’m so uncomfortable there is a girl.”
A third says, “A female, bro, get out of here.”
Recordings are prohibited in school locker rooms, but the girl recorded the encounter. Thanks to footage obtained by Nick Minock of ABC 7 News, we can see teenage boys milling about wearing t-shirts, sweats. One tugs on a drawstring around his waist.
Afterward, three boys were subject to a school investigation because of a Title IX sexual-harassment complaint – brought by the girl.
Reality check: Does this sound like sexual harassment to you: “I’m so uncomfortable there is a girl”?
The school did not discipline the girl, LCPS explained to parents afterward, because none of the boys were naked. This is not the policy. It does not say it’s okay to record in a locker room so long as no one is naked. It says no recording.
The boys “were questioning why there was a female in the males' locker room,” one father complained afterward. “They're young, they're 15 years old,” he told ABC 7News. “They were having a conversation with their peer group. They weren't directly asking or interacting with this other student, and… they're being punished. We have some serious charges that can affect his future.”
“It could affect [my son’s] college admissions,” said another father. “He’s a sweet, kind boy. He’s such a gentleman.”
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares found no evidence of sexual harassment and accused the school district of weaponizing Title IX. “I think this is an example of a school district that tries to be so open-minded their brain falls out.”
Usually, girls are the ones whose locker rooms are infiltrated by the other sex. Usually, girls are the ones refusing to play along with the trans fiction that kids can magically change sexes. Girls are the ones protesting and boycotting and wearing “XX does not equal XY” T-shirts and speaking out in public – because it’s happening far more often to them.
But the absurdity of forcing boys to disrobe in front of a female classmate will shine a fresh light — I hope — on the absurdity of forcing girls to disrobe in front of male classmates. Because isn’t it obvious to anyone whose brain has not fallen out that boys - and therefore girls- have a right to locker-room privacy?
Girls have it worse not only because it’s more common, but because it’s more dangerous. About 99 percent of sexual assaults and exhibitionism are committed by men. But the trans fiction damages both boys and girls.
I hope all of us can chat with relief at some future reunion, marveling at the craziness of this era but relieved that everyone understands it for the misguided mess it was.
Is.
Thoughts? I’m always curious. See also:
…and related stories in #SaveWomensSports.
Stock’s explanations for trans fiction among trans-identified people: 1) dysphoria and 2) male sexual arousal at the concept of themselves as female (autogynephilia). Stock’s explanations for trans fiction among the rest of us: 1) a desire to be kind; 2) a desire to seem kind; 3) a desire to avoid ostracization; and 4) “a desire to undo human sexed categories with the power of words, because you heard from some whack job academic that this was a coherent and politically desirable thing to aim for.”
“Because isn’t it obvious to anyone whose brain has not fallen out that boys - and therefore girls- have a right to locker-room privacy?” You would think so, right? Yet so far, we seem to have a plague of brainlessness.
5) the desire to avoid confrontation 6) the startle phenomenon, in which you are too startled to react in the moment and then the moment is over and it's too late.