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Lincoln HS Students Protest South Dakota’s Human Rights Abuses

About 50 Lincoln High School students cut class in Sioux Falls yesterday afternoon to protest Senate Bill 46, South Dakota’s new law banning transgender females from playing school sports. The students recognize that, even if there aren’t that many transgender kids fighting to participate in the jockocracy, an attack some people’s rights is an attack on everybody’s rights:

One student at the walk-out said these bills were “not ok”, especially for students in school.

“They should be able to learn, be educated, feel safe and for somebody to make a bill on someone– who they are as a human being, that’s not right,” Lincoln High School senior, Annabella, said. “Trans rights are human rights; gay rights are human rights and what they are doing is taking human rights away.”

…Laura Jimma and Marta Gevremariyam said they attended the walk-out to do what they can to support equal rights for everybody.

“A human being is a human being,” Laura said [Jazzmine Jackson and Don Jorgensen, “Students Organize Walk-Out to Protest Anti-Transgender Bills,” KELO-TV, updated 2022.03.31].

The Governor’s Office did not immediately liken these protestors to terrorists, but it also didn’t deploy DOT signs to welcome them to the streets or the Governor to come shoot campaign video.

Let us hope the students who walked out of class yesterday to defend human rights will next walk to the courthouse to register to vote, walk to doors to canvass, and walk to the polls in June and November to support candidates who support human rights.

26 Comments

  1. Mark Anderson 2022-03-31 08:39

    Well, the extreme rights will find they will be voted out of existence soon enough. Just keep it up pubs. You will soon find its the United States of America.

  2. Nix 2022-03-31 08:42

    Good for these fine young people standing up for what is right.
    Thank goodness they weren’t Lakota,
    or The Dope Queen of Delusion would have had Deputy dog Rick Miller, Lock ‘em up Milstead and the National Guard
    thumping heads because it is what they do.
    Remember the Mt. Rushmore fireworks
    protest?
    Oh, ya…That was different.
    Those were Indians. Not white kids.

  3. Donald Pay 2022-03-31 09:48

    From the Class of ’69 I want to thank those LHS students for caring enough to take a stand on this issue. Too bad most of these students can’t vote. I think we would be better off if we lowered the voting age to 16.

    When I went to school at LHS, girls had few options to participate in athletics. Discrimination against girls and women was rampant, at least in South Dakota. In Iowa things weren’t hunky dory, but they were better. We all watched TV as our rooftop antennas picked up the Iowa girls basketball tournament from Sioux City stations. Those girls were much better than many boys teams, but they had funny “girls rules.” That was soon to change.

    Title IX came along a few years later, and schools finally were under legal requirement to treat girls and women equally in education, including extra-curricular activities. How that got worked out was not easy. There was a lot of bellyaching about how sports for males were going to be watered down. Mainly, it was a budget and space issue, and there was concern about how it might affect scholarships for the top male athletes. As with many things, it came down to money.

    I was there for the first women’s basketball games at Augustana College, as it was then called. It wasn’t great basketball, but those women competed hard. It would take a few years, but girls’ and women’s sports took off, and became just as interesting to watch as the males. I took my four-year-old daughter to the Pierre high school girls basketball games when we lived there. She ended up not being much of an athlete, but she participated in debate, where girls and boys compete together.

    One of the interesting things I learned as a school board member in Rapid City is that the biggest supporters of girls’ sports are Daddies. I suspect the biggest supporters of their transgender children in sports will be their Daddies. I don’t know how this will work out, but it will get worked out. It may take a few years, some court cases and some brave demonstrations by high school kids, but it will get worked out.

  4. Eve Fisher 2022-03-31 10:17

    “They should be able to learn, be educated, feel safe and for somebody to make a bill on someone– who they are as a human being, that’s not right,” Lincoln High School senior, Annabella, said. “Trans rights are human rights; gay rights are human rights and what they are doing is taking human rights away.”
    Amen.

  5. All Mammal 2022-03-31 11:21

    I do absolutely advocate for all rights to all people.

    I played all the sports through high school and when I joined an adult softball team several years ago, I asked to never have to pitch against a male when we played coed. Taking the mound against a man was a whole different ballgame and creates a real uneven playing field.

    The disadvantage of playing against someone with different physical attributes takes girls sports away from girls. *I hate the mean spirit of any bill that discriminates so I have a possible solution that can keep sports as fair and inclusive as possible:

    Keep the same rules governing sports the same as in the Olympics. If a urinalysis test shows any performance enhancers, the athlete is disqualified. I would deem elevated levels of testosterone to be a performance enhancing hormone, therefore in girls sports, if any athlete has a level of hormones not present in the average female athlete (I am sure there are better scientific criterion research would come up with) the athlete would be benched until their urinalysis (or other noninvasive analysis) levels show there are no performance enhancing hormones at elevated levels.

    I have been racking my brain trying to come up with a way to let every kid determine their goals and live their dreams, at the same time not scare their opponents off the pitcher’s mound. I know it is half ass and I haven’t done any research on my proposal, but it may be a start to a more fair and inclusive solution. I stand with the Lincoln students in Sioux Falls. I cannot wait until our kids come together and solve this quagmire that scares small minded closeted oppressors. There is a way to accept everyone while preserving an equal playing field. Everybody is an asset and it is a beautiful thing to witness every kid flourish.

  6. mike from iowa 2022-03-31 11:47

    Public opinions in nearly all political categories back up student protesters.

  7. O 2022-03-31 11:58

    . . . or maybe we should stop elevating physical sport to the level of worship?

  8. Donald Pay 2022-03-31 12:18

    Let’s say I wanted to preserve my child’s constitutional rights to choose his or her gender at some later stage in life and, thus, preserve his or her rights to participate in high school and higher ed athletics. I was looking over what the options are to not submit a birth certificate, or to withhold the information on sex. If I were having a child in South Dakota I would be thinking in terms of my child’s future, and if I could monkeywrench this stupid law, I think I might search for a way to not submit that certificate. It appears to be a misdemeanor to withhold the certificate. I’d spend a few days in jail just to preserve my child’s constitutional rights. If there is no sex on the birth certificate or no certificate at all, that law appears to not work as intended. There is a requirement that the parents agree with what the doctor has submitted on the form. What if I respectfully disagree in order to preserve my child’s rights? Isn’t it parents’ responsibility and parents’ right to protect the child in this way? I think so. I think this law is government overreach that infringes on Constitutional rights of the parents and the child.

    I don’t have a bun in the oven, so I can’t test out this method of protesting this law. I would if I did.

    Here’s a link to the Vital records statutes:

    https://sdlegislature.gov/Statutes/Codified_Laws/2057342

  9. John 2022-03-31 12:21

    Where’s O’Gorman High School’s protest? Where’s Sioux Falls Christian’s protest?
    Where’s the moderate white christian pastor’s protest? (You know, the same vermin Dr. ML King chastised for their sin of ‘moderation’ when he was ‘in here’ and they remained ‘out there’.)

    Where’s all that hokum of ‘love your neighbor as yourself’? Where’s all that folly of ‘love one another’? Where’s all the folly of ‘doing unto others . . .’?

    The FEAR of the largely white moderates clergy, the white self-aggrandized christians who REFUSE to walk their talk is the center exhibit for the decline of the christian religion in the US. People WANT righteousness, honor, respecting their neighbors – but they don’t find that in main`stream practices of christianity.

    Michelle Fleming shared: “In case you were wondering about “gender”, “biology” and “sex”…here is the skinny on the science explained in simple, short terms. Coolest thing I have read in a long time!”
    Bottom line, god, muhammad, jehovah, or whatever idol man in the sky — may be perfect; but biology is IMPERFECT.

    https://www.facebook.com/1367164183/posts/10224319548760818/?d=n

  10. Donald Pay 2022-03-31 13:33

    A scenario somewhat as All Mammal advocates is where this may end up at some point. Testosterone levels would be a somewhat more objective measure, but it would have to be up two or three standard deviations from the female average to be workable. Even that might disqualify a few female athletes who have naturally high testosterone levels.

    Males have to compete against other males in sports, and that ain’t fair, either. I figured out the first day I went out for football in high school that I would never be able to compete at that level. I was a shrimp, and still am. I decided to join the cross country team, instead. I was no good at that, either, but at least I tried. I went out for wrestling, thinking the weight classifications would save me from being flattened like a pancake, but by then my desire to be a jock had waned. I was more into politics, and working on the McCarthy For President campaign. That was co-ed, by the way.

  11. mike from iowa 2022-03-31 15:02

    How many trans people know at birth what sex they will be? Like asking at what age a person decided to become Gay, Magats are morons.

  12. mike from iowa 2022-03-31 15:08

    Trans genderism is less a serious problem than magat voter fraud and does less damage on a daily basis. Much ado about nothing much.

  13. Darrell Solberg 2022-03-31 15:09

    As we are finding out over and over again, it’s Kristi’s way or the highway!!! Her actions point to like a dictatorship and her little puppets fall in line!! I wish that she would quit making South Dakota the laughing stock of too many in America!!! That of course wouldn’t include the deciples of her mentor, DJT!!!

  14. mike from iowa 2022-03-31 15:35

    Speaking of human rights abuses, a notorious anti-abortion zealot in DC’s home was raided and agents came away with the remains of 5 fetuses. Her comment was typically magat and disgustingly deplorable.

    https://www.rawstory.com/lauren-handy/

    Five fetuses found at home of anti-abortion activist who feared ‘people would freak out when they heard’

  15. All Mammal 2022-03-31 16:11

    I agree with everyone’s concerns and uncertainties this hate breed bill gets us roused and ready to defend our brethren like honey badgers with. Like Mr. Solberg, it is important to be looking at and fixing what is busted. CRT and all extra curricula was getting along without big bad state gov putting their big powerful thumb on our inalienables. So therefore there wasn’t anything busted there. What is busted (besides some treaties) is who we have put into the roles that govern. We gotta stop doing that.

    The real question isn’t what the rules and laws we will face now. The question should be why are these weirdos who are elected with zero prerequisites, (not including hair school obviously) think they need to have any say. Why are they so worried about something that doesn’t bother anyone and has been two spiritin’ around from way back before the misty? Kinda like what Mr. John’s friend Ms. Fleming said; it’s nature and we can’t even fathom how creative ol mother nature is. The focus always needs put on the ones denying equal tights. If they can come up with a response makes ridiculous justifications for their actions, then they need a pink slip.

  16. All Mammal 2022-03-31 16:12

    **i meant rights.

  17. DaveFN 2022-03-31 17:02

    John

    “Bottom line, god, muhammad, jehovah, or whatever idol man in the sky — may be perfect; but biology is IMPERFECT.”

    A default to reductionist, biological determinism on the topic (not saying you are doing this; appears in fact you are not) would, of course, go down the same mistaken path as Elizabeth Warren looking for a genetic marker in her DNA to prove she was Native American (there is no such known marker, despite Carlos Bustamante’s song and dance regarding his findings), as well as genetic markers to prove why one is gay or lesbian (there is no gay gene nor marker https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02585-6?msclkid=e5d8f1f3b13d11ecae917f6a23a9172a ).

    Add to it all that transgender individuals may be homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, etc.

    Human desires are influenced by all kinds of factors, and biological factors do not entirely account for them, however much people in modern society like to appeal to science they don’t understand. Culture has a great deal to do with gender identity.

    Wikipedia has a fairly thorough write-up on gender identity, and a blurb on how parents are influential when it comes to gender identity (gay, straight, or in between) of their children:

    “Parents who do not support gender nonconformity are more likely to have children with firmer and stricter views on gender identity and gender roles.[55] Recent literature suggests a trend towards less well-defined gender roles and identities, as studies of parental coding of toys as masculine, feminine, or neutral indicate that parents increasingly code kitchens and in some cases dolls as neutral rather than exclusively feminine.[63] However, Emily Kane found that many parents still showed negative responses to items, activities, or attributes that were considered feminine, such as domestic skills, nurturance, and empathy.[63] Research has indicated that many parents attempt to define gender for their sons in a manner that distances the sons from femininity,[63] with Kane stating that “the parental boundary maintenance work evident for sons represents a crucial obstacle limiting boys options, separating boys from girls, devaluing activities marked as feminine for both boys and girls, and thus bolstering gender inequality and heteronormativity.”[63]

    Many parents form gendered expectations for their child before it is even born, after determining the child’s sex through technology such as ultrasound. The child thus is born to a gender-specific name, games, and even ambitions.[41] Once the child’s sex is determined, most children are raised in accordance with it to be a man or a woman, fitting a male or female gender role defined partly by the parents.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity?msclkid=7c978025b13c11ecb4758d0f21d39f02

    I really would like to know more what Noem thinks about all of this. All we really know is her statement regarding that it is unfair for some to play with others (evidently due in part to biological testosterone reasons that she believes make males more competitive than females, which very well may be the case). I sense she has other reasons but isn’t adept at articulating them; better at keeping her cards hidden from the public.

  18. O 2022-03-31 18:39

    Donald points out that there are inherent attributes for success in sports. If a person is tall, coordinated, and has great hand-eye coordination, what is the point of “fair” contest to show that athlete is a “winner” at basketball? The entire concept of “fair” sport is a misnomer. I still ask, why is any outcome of these competitions SO (if at all) important?

    I argue that traditional genetics has excluded more from the pinnacle of athletic success than gender dysmorphia ever will.

  19. All Mammal 2022-03-31 20:17

    People have sought the rapture of dopamine release and insight and completeness forever. Winning feels good. It may also attract a partner by demonstrating strength and cunning, which prolongs life and helps pass on genetic information. Winning in sport competitions feels good and brings you closer to your tribesmen in order to secure safe, healthy young.

    I have a suspicion like Mr. O subtly hints to as well that there may be another root of competitive evolution and, like most other discriminating rituals, always gives man the upper hand. Sorry gentlemen, but man has subjugated women to the point where we no longer need chains to be slaves. Testosterone has and is being argued as a toxin to the good earth. Could you all just tone it down a bit please? Thanks(:

  20. DaveFN 2022-03-31 20:20

    O

    “I argue that traditional genetics has excluded more from the pinnacle of athletic success than gender dysmorphia ever will.”

    Do I rightly (or wrongly) presume you to mean popular (and popularized) understandings of traditional genetics?

  21. Arlo Blundt 2022-03-31 22:10

    The NCAA has announced that it will move to adopt the Olympic Standards for competition by trans individuals. When the NCAA does this, the High School Activities Associations around the country will follow suit and adopt the rules of the NCAA….that’s the way things work.

  22. mike from iowa 2022-04-01 09:01

    Take a good look at the accomplishments of U of iowa standout sophomore guard, Caitlin Clark, and ask yourself how it can be permissible for her to compete with any other players not as good. As a freshman, she led the nation in scoring and was second in assists. She also shot the most 3 point shots.

    This year she led the nation in scoring and assists, free throws shot, total points, total assists, and triple doubles with 5. She should have been Freshman of the Year last year and, imho, POY this year. Miss Clark has super phenomenal range on her jump shot and she averaged nearly a triple double with 27 ppg, 8 assists and 8 rebounds per game.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jeVOqiJPJA

    Caitlin Clark from the logo shots. Impressive.

  23. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2022-04-01 13:11

    I like what O said. Transgender athletes wouldn’t be an issue if we just viewed sport as sport and not religion.

  24. O 2022-04-01 14:31

    DaveFN, I am only making the clumsy point that some people are taller, faster, stronger, have better vision . . . than other people, and although all those elements can be trained and honed, those are advantages that some are born with. I say we remember the genetic lottery’s role in athletic success.

  25. mike from iowa 2022-04-01 15:29

    Whatever happened to “It’s just a game?”

  26. Mark Anderson 2022-04-02 19:33

    Come on Cory, Alcaraz plays tommorrow and he deserves a religious following.

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