Surprise Attack
Bullies like to wait and attack their unsuspecting victims by surprise. Not only does it make their personal violence more threatening, but it makes it impossible for the victim to prepare a defense, or sometimes even cry out for help. A bully lurks around the hidden corner in the boys restroom, or behind the shelves in the locker room.
And a bully looks to others for “applause”. The bully is “taking care” of a self-designated “problem”; making sure that the victim is punished for some imaginary infraction. Bullies don’t attack in the light of day, but they do want to perform in front of an audience. Some will approve, others will disapprove but in silence. Both reactions empowers the bully to do more.
There is no more classic bullying behavior than to “pick” on those that are different. The bully finds out the one who has little other support. In school it was the kid who didn’t fit in. Maybe it was race, ethnicity or religion, or maybe it was family or associations. But more often it was some form of gender identity. The boy who seemed effeminate or physically immature, the girl who is too “manly”. Bullies are often afraid of what they do not understand. How could someone else be “different”? There must be something “wrong” with them. The bully gains their self-value by attacking others for their differences.
State Legislature
The bully attacked in the Ohio State Legislature yesterday. A simple bill to correct an injustice in how collegiate athletes could earn money was on the floor. It changed Ohio law to allow what many other states, and the US Supreme Court, already mandate. An athlete in college could make money from their own name, image and likeness (NIL), something that under current law would make the athlete a “professional” and no longer eligible for college athletics.
That was it – unanimously passed by the Ohio Senate and sent for confirmation to the Ohio House of Representatives. The Athletic Directors of the Ohio State, Cincinnati and Dayton all approved. More importantly, Ohio State Football Coach Ryan Day was the “closer”. He said Ohio State would be at a recruiting disadvantage without the change. What legislator wants to be “the fall guy” for OSU losing to Michigan?
Then the bully struck. Jena Powell, the Representative from Arcanum, a small town in the farm fields near the Indiana border north of Dayton, launched a surprise attack. She attached an amendment to the NIL bill, saying that transgendered athletes are banned from participating in women’s high school and college sports. They would be required to participate on male teams.
Fake News
This is major issue – if you’re sole source of news media is Fox News or OAN or Joe Rogan. As a “real” problem for “real” athletics, it barely exists at all. But Representative Powell used the NIL Bill to be the bully and launch a surprise attack on some of the most vulnerable members of our society – the adolescents who are trying to live their true gender identity against “the norm”.
They aren’t much risk to “win” events, or take scholarships away from “real girls”. Search the nation: two cases in Connecticut, one in Texas, one in North Dakota – out of the millions of high school and collegiate athletes out there – four cases where transgendered girls had athletic success. In the past six years, there have been eleven transgendered girls competing in Ohio high school competition. No one knew, and there wasn’t an issue. But Representative Powell and her Republican confederates were going to “solve” that problem for the state.
Fear
I’ve written about transgendered athletes before. They are “different” than the norm, and easy to use to create fear. In fact, in March I wrote a whole essay about the use of Fear, fear of the unknown and the different, fear of a changing world to “fire-up” a political base. It’s about creating a “straw-man” issue, generating an undeserved fear of an unlikely consequence, and using it to leverage votes. It’s the act of a bully.
But let’s be clear about a couple of things. There is no hidden “reserve” of boys waiting to compete as girls to win medals. What we know now that we didn’t several years ago, is that there are multiple reasons why a person may be anatomically one sex, but mentally another. They deserve a chance for a normal and fulfilling life. They don’t deserve to be attacked for political gain and to be bullied by the Representative from Arcanum or other authorities.
Late last night, Ohio Senate Republicans attached the NIL legislation to another bill, nullifying the amended House bill. Good for them for standing up to the bullies. Sad for Ohio that we too had to fall into the trap of using fear for political gain.
