Does the GOP Know What a Woman Is?

 

As of Saturday, JD Vance and Donald Trump were both still misgendering Imane Khelif, an Algerian boxer who was born female and was raised female. There is no good reason to believe that she either does have elevated testosterone or is chromosomally XY. She seems to just be a hard-working girl with a heck of a punch who is living her dream and representing her country in a sport she loves. 

This is why I insist transphobia is in part, misogyny. And delusional. Imagine the contortions your mind must go through to suspect the "woke" government of Algeria sending a trans boxer to the Olympics. Imagine being so careless about facts that you would say this not caring what kind of blowback falls on that young lady, who is just trying to do her best? 

She is tough, strong, muscular. Calling her "male" is saying women cannot be these things. Suddenly, people who insist on anatomy being destiny started to ask whether, like Caster Semaya, this woman might be intersex. Transphobes understand gender exists on a spectrum after all, when it suits them, but only when it comes to trying to exclude someone. They seized on this woman for no good reason other than they needed someone to "other" at the moment. 

Should a woman look like the women at Mar-A-Lago, botoxed with bolt-on bazongas? Athletic training at a high level reduces body fat, and tits are body fat. Aftermarket mammaries are expensive, a vanity, a handicap in the sporting sense. Is society not merely scornful of flat-chested women, but now, afraid? 

But then again, JD Vance isn't even sure we are decent people until and unless we procreate. Otherwise we might become sociopathic and feral. You know us ladies, just killing our kids, getting divorced and doing witchcraft and becoming lesbians. 

What else is the pernicious lie about post-birth abortion doing in the world? The idea that the existence of divorce ruins families, and not that families can be destroyed by various factors before divorce is even discussed? That divorce exists because of those factors, and not the other way about? The fear among straight men that women will give them up if we decide women are less dangerous and more fun? The idea that the very existence of gay marriage somehow makes straight marriage less?

It's about reinforcing gender norms--or rather, gender stereotypes. Woman should be: Loyal, dependent, childlike, dainty, sweet-keeping. Barefoot, pretty and pregnant. We shouldn't be a man's boss or able to beat the piss out of him. We shouldn't be able to just walk away. With all of our value. And not just whether we are great with the children. 

And let's talk about witchcraft--did you know voting for a woman makes a man transition? Great shades of antiquity. (And if one votes for MTG, Lauren Boebert or Joni Ernst or Marsha Blackburn or....)

 The GOP seems kind of confused about what a woman really is. Whether we should work outside the home, determine how we create our families, run for office, be athletic and dominating, look how we look and be comfortable in our skin. Be loved and not abused, and not have to accept abuse. 

Here's something we can and should be--president. We should be medal-winners and bread winners. We should do what we want. We are people and hold up half the sky. We are more than the sum of our chromosomes or reproductive parts. 

And we have lived in our skins and walked our experience, so Republican men (and go along to get along women) better stop lying about what we know well and good to be true. Imane is a woman, and women come in all shapes and sizes. We all do. And we will not cut ourselves short because anyone wants to hold us back. 

We are not going back.