Curt Schilling and gender enforcement in America

Giancarlo Navas/ Staff Writer

“A man is a man no matter what they call themselves. I don’t care what they are, who they sleep with, men’s room was designed for the penis, women’s not so much. Now you need laws telling us differently? Pathetic.”

Those were the words that recently fired ESPN baseball analyst and former World Series Champion Curt Schilling attached to a shared Facebook post. The post showed a picture of an overweight person wearing a wig and had tears in their shirt to expose breasts and the stomach.

The text on the side of the picture reads “LET HIM IN! to the restroom with your daughter or else you’re a narrow-minded, judgmental, unloving racist bigot who needs to die.”

It’s sad how little America understands about the transgender community and the construction of gender. America sees the person in that photo as a representation of the transgender community.

Transgender is a broad term that encompasses many things. The American Psychological Organization defines it as, “an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth.”

The question then becomes what is gender? The American Psychological Organization defined this as, “the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women. These influence the ways that people act, interact, and feel about themselves.”

The key word there is “socially constructed roles” and that there is where Schilling’s understanding of the trans community is probably most lacking.

The concept of gender construction is simple really, the idea of man and woman as a gender has been constructed for centuries. It’s a product of society, not something hardwired into our DNA.

This then delves into questions of what is the essence of a man and woman and even further is the concept of “masquerade” developed by post-structuralist feminist Judith Butler.

These are all nuanced and very specific topics that it would be unreasonable to expect a 49-year-old former major leaguer to understand, let alone know of.

In fairness to Schilling I think most of America doesn’t truly understand what the LGBT community is like, especially the “T.”

They haven’t been to drag shows, gay bars, pride parades or even socialize in gay and trans circles. There is a lack of exposure and education so naturally people on the outside look at it as weird or strange.

Sports communities are even less equipped to deal with such things. Their construction of the male gender is so clearly defined and often believed to be correlated with success.

The more “manly” you are, the better. Professional sports is an ecosystem that chews up people not fitting and conforming to its culture.

It’s result driven and unrelenting, it is Darwinism at it’s finest. Survive. It’s a cliche used in sports a lot and survival doesn’t have empathy to those on the outside.

It is in the culture of sports that makes it difficult for sports figures to understand the plight and pain of trying to discover your gender identity. In a place where gender is so clearly defined it be difficult to comprehend the grays.

Schilling and the picture he re-posted alleged that if they aren’t comfortable with letting the person in the picture go into the restroom with their daughter, then people felt the needed to die. Which isn’t true, but what they can stand for more of is an understanding of those that don’t fit into their neat little constructed gender binary.

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