During a recent hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee that was meant to focus on efforts to protect the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans, panel member Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) put on an honestly pathetic show.
His sprawling five minutes of questioning included an attempt to bully a medical professional among the witnesses into claiming something that wasn’t necessarily true and a rant applying language often used to uplift LGBTQ+ Americans to those who oppose the inclusion of transgender youth and adults.
Republicans throughout the hearing returned to the topic of Riley Gaines, a swimmer who once faced transgender competitor Lia Thomas and has gotten a world of mileage out of complaining about the outcome. For years, there have been strict guidelines for participation of transgender athletes in many college athletic events — like where Gaines and Thomas faced each other in school. Pretending otherwise is just ignorant, though Graham barreled headfirst into trying to cast Thomas as automatically better because of her physical body anyway… no matter the fact that it’s ridiculous to assert the average body of someone assigned male at birth could always outperform the average person who is female.
“I am not a sports medicine physician,” pediatric endocrinologist Ximena Lopez, who was appearing as a witness, told Graham after a question about whether Thomas had a significant advantage. “[Key sports medicine authorities] do not recommend the exclusion of transgender individuals in sports… As a medical professional, I don’t have the scientific expertise to provide an opinion.” The specific organization she referenced may have been the International Federation of Sports Medicine, an established group. Graham explicitly asserted that opinions as “a person” trounced that… which is not how science works! You can’t just decide you feel differently, and that’s that!
The Senator then pestered fellow witness Kelley Robinson of the Human Rights Campaign about what she knew regarding public opinion around transgender participation in athletics. “I can say more than 70 percent of Americans believe that the rash of attacks on trans sports is the wrong political priority,” Robinson said, as Graham tried to interrupt.
Check out the mess below:
