WASHINGTON – President Biden started a heated debate over identity politics less than 24 hours after his presidency, when he signed an order of gender discrimination that drew criticism from his accusers of nullifying women’s rights.
The language in the order would allow transgender women to participate in women’s sports leagues.
The policy aims to enforce a Supreme Court decision last year that prohibits discrimination based on someone’s gender identity and sexual orientation.
“All people must be treated with respect and dignity and must be able to live without fear, no matter who they are or whom they love,” said the dispatch, signed on the first day of Biden’s term, Wednesday.
“Children must be able to learn without worrying about whether they will have access to the bathroom, locker room or school sports.”
As more transgender athletes begin to struggle to participate in women’s sports, the debate intensifies on whether they should compete in the same field, given the biological differences in strength and muscle mass.
The implicit politicization of gender in sports drew immediate outrage online with “#BidenErasedWomen” and “#TERFs”Becoming one of the most popular Twitter hashtags in the United States on Thursday morning, as the two sides of the political debate vied.
TERF is an acronym for “radical trans-exclusionary feminist” and is considered an insult to people who defend feminist beliefs and distinguish biological women from trans women.
“Unilaterally imposing trans ideology on a nation that doesn’t think about women’s rights is not how you create unity,” feminist activist Dr. Jane Clare Jones wrote in a tweet, criticizing the decision.
Wall Street Journal reporter Abigail Shrier she also used Twitter to attack Biden’s order, which she said “had unilaterally eviscerated women’s sport”.
“Any educational institution that receives federal funding must admit biologically male athletes to women’s teams, women’s scholarships, etc. A new glass ceiling has been placed over the girls, ”said Shrier.
The LGB Alliance, a group of UK lesbian, gay and bisexual alliances that has also been labeled “transphobic”, said it was “horrified” by Biden’s order.
“We are shocked by the executive order of @potus erasing the rights of women and girls based on sex,” read a tweet of the group.
“It is a blow to women and girls in sports, prisons, rape shelters, hospitals, etc. and prohibits lesbians and gays from having their own spaces. We will help our American friends to oppose this. “
Film director Sonia Poulton also rejected the charge that she was “transphobic” for criticizing Biden’s order.
“I am called TERF because I believe that women are entitled to our own sports, prisons, refuges and spaces and because I believe that children should be protected from people who seek to sexualize them and confuse them about who they are. Happy to defend what I do, ” she wrote.
Added other pundit: “If you think opposition to biological advantage is transphobia, you are stupid af-ing.”
Trans activists argued that the Biden government, protecting the rights of American transgender people, did not steal women’s rights.
“I see the trend for #BidenErasedWomen, so it looks like a good time to remind everyone that trans people have been around in all registered cultures,” wrote a transgender activist and journalist Paris Lees.
“Biden simply said that he will not allow people like me to be discriminated against for using women’s bathrooms, as we always have,” she continued.
“There is no evidence that this has caused problems for the rest of society. Trans people who use toilets that they consider appropriate are not new – the pressure to discriminate, however, is. “