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* My weekly syndicated newspaper column…
A Facebook post last week by state Sen. Willie Preston, D-Chicago, created a stir and caused one of his fellow Democratic senators to bow out of a planned joint fundraiser. Ultimately, the entire fundraiser was canceled.
It’s all a good illustration of the ill-informed, rapid-fire insanity of our social media-fueled era.
Preston posted an incendiary story by a notorious British tabloid about Olympic boxer Imane Khelif of Algeria. “Boxer ‘deemed male’ leaves Italian female fighter in tears at Olympics,” was the Daily Mail headline.
“This is wrong,” Preston wrote. “I respect all people however at a certain point we have to be insane to accept this. As a father of daughters, I cannot sit back and watch this anymore. We must save female sports. I plan on working on legislation that protects women sports. Women shouldn’t have to compete against anyone who is biologically a man.”
Preston wasn’t alone. People, mostly conservatives, took to their social media accounts with rage. Hard-right state Rep. Adam Niemerg, R-Dieterich, was one of them, reposting a tweet warning that allowing men to box with women was going to get somebody killed.
“Men don’t belong in women’s sports!” Rep. Niemerg himself wrote. “End of discussion.”
Some of his Republican colleagues also posted similar thoughts online.
But, as far as I could tell, Preston was the only Illinois Democratic state legislator to fall for the false outrage.
In reality, Khelif was born a female, and her Algerian passport lists her as a female. The International Olympic Committee uses athletes’ passports to determine gender. Algeria is a Muslim country where gender change is illegal and even simply possessing a rainbow flag can result in a two-year prison sentence.
Also, do you really think that Algeria, which banned the “Barbie” movie, would give a man a woman’s passport? C’mon.
Yes, Khelif was barred by the International Boxing Association last year, and the IBA’s executive director, who is a longtime Russian boxing official, recently claimed Khelif had both X and Y chromosomes, which some women do have (and which studies have found gives them no consistent sporting advantage).
The IBA director earlier claimed Khelif had “elevated levels of testosterone.” So, I guess it’s possible she was juicing, but the IBA is so notoriously and thoroughly corrupt that the International Olympic Committee refuses to work with it (and that’s saying something, considering the IOC’s sordid history).
Also of note, after the controversial Paris Olympics’ opening ceremonies, the IBA’s executive director called IOC President Thomas Bach “a chief sodomite.”
It took just a few minutes to find all that on Google.
Look, I truly do not care what you think about anything. This is a free country, and I love it that way. So, if you’re a legislator and you want to ban people legally born as males from participating in female sports, that’s your right as a state legislator to try. Go ahead and file your bill and work your colleagues and invite the debate, and let’s see how that all plays out.
However, if you, as a state legislator, publicly announce you’ll be introducing important state legislation to address an issue that makes you mad, I think we all have the right to expect that you first take at least a minute or two to double-check whether your outrage is actually valid before you pop off.
The members of the Senate Democratic caucus are more publicly close-knit than many nuclear families I know. Their public solidarity is really quite something to behold.
So, I wasn’t surprised when progressive state Sen. Robert Peters, D-Chicago, refused to confirm that he’d bowed out of co-hosting a fundraiser with Preston. But I was told by very reliable sources that he did do so.
The other two Preston fundraiser co-hosts were Chicago state Sens. Michael Simmons and Lakesia Collins. Simmons is the Senate’s first openly gay member, and Collins is a fiery and unapologetic progressive. Simmons and Collins have not responded to repeated inquiries from me and my associate Isabel Miller about Preston’s post or about the event.
Preston also didn’t respond. But the Facebook post disappeared after we started making inquiries.
Maybe he learned.
And then the same day I told my newsletter subscribers about Preston and the fundraiser, the Senate Democrats told donors the Aug. 7 event had been canceled.
All this because somebody let their emotions control their brain.
It should be a lesson to everyone in these crazy times.
posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 7:53 am
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“No one ever regretted saying, ‘wait a minute’.”-
Sam Rayburn
Comment by Flyin'Elvis'-Utah Chapter Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 8:58 am
people do need to slow down because these matters can really be quite complicated. she is not trans.
Comment by Amalia Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 9:06 am
There was a lot of misinformation about thus topic on social media. It was going to get someone.
Comment by Three Dimensional Checkers Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 9:14 am
It would now be appropriate for Sen. Preston to issue an apology for spreading this harmful misinformation, rather than going silent and pretending it never happened.
Comment by charles in charge Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 9:17 am
Thank you for being the voice of reason, Rich. Exactly right about Algeria. No chance they would give her a passport that said she was female unless she really was.
Comment by low level Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 9:21 am
People are still spouting nonsense about Khelif. By the way- if she really was trans and benefitted from a lifetime of male hormones, wouldn’t she easily earn gold? How was another woman able to beat her?
Comment by hmmm Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 9:27 am
Thank you so much for writing this, Rich. It’s absolutely horrifying to see what has been done to this woman in the name of whipping up fervor against trans people in the name of gaining political power. I”m grateful we have a diversity of legislators who have to work to reach consensus rather than react as a mob.
Comment by Apple Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 9:34 am
At this elite level, most of these human beings have some kind of genetic “advantage” that makes them preternaturally good, in addition to their insane training. I don’t think you can regulate that part without going down a rabbit hole of impossible decisions, who is eligible to compete and who has an “unfair advantage.” The rule seems to be, no extra substances added, so unless she was actually injecting herself with more testosterone, yes, I don’t see the controversy.
Comment by ZC Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 9:40 am
Senator Preston’s reaction to a fake social media campaign is yet another reminder that we must be vigilant at vetting the stories we see on our on our electronic devices.
Comment by Frumpy White Guy Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 9:42 am
This is a poster case of engaging the mouth before putting the brain in gear.
Comment by Huh? Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 9:55 am
Great Column, Rich. I appreciate you for writing about this in a news paper of record so this is harder to hide behind than just deleting a Facebook post.
===As a father of daughters===
I don’t understand why people think that having a daughter gives them a special license for bigotry and hate or if when someone makes this statement they think that they’re blaming their bigotry on their daughters and that makes it okay.
There’s a lot of hate in this world. A state representative should know better. At least with the GOP elected officials fanning the fire of this false information I can assume that they know it is false and that they know what they are doing.
===All this because somebody let their emotions control their brain.===
It is at least refreshing to know where his emotional instincts are. These Olympics have done a good job at making it so all sorts of people have self identified their bigotry.
Comment by Candy Dogood Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 10:35 am
Keep your mouth shut. It is better to be thought a fool than to speak abd remove all doubt.
Comment by Huh? Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 10:51 am
There are entire groups of people that seem wired to jump to outrage without even considering learning facts first. It is more important for them to be mad about something than to get anywhere close to correct.
Comment by Homebody Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 11:14 am
@ZC there’s lots of regulation going on Different sports different regulations Male and female categories so….
Comment by Amalia Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 11:19 am
Probably should think about what my grandma said. If you don’t have anything nice don’t say it at all. Also, my son is in wrestling in Jr High. Girls do wrestle boys from time to time. No problems there. Boxing is probably a bit different but I still see lots of fake outrage out there on social media that the same people don’t say out loud in mixed company.
Comment by GoneFishing Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 11:40 am
===There are entire groups of people that seem wired to jump to outrage without even considering learning facts first. It is more important for them to be mad about something than to get anywhere close to correct.===
That’s a feature, not a bug for all social media companies. They send you some info designed to trigger a response, social media users oblige. Rinse, lather, repeat.
Pavlov would be proud. Social media conditions us to remain engaged and outrage is an effective tool for engagement.
Comment by 47th Ward Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 12:14 pm
You can tell it’s a fake culture-war issue because the only time men REALLY care about women in sports is when women start beating them in a co-ed sport, whereupon they demand a men’s only league so they don’t get defeated by women. A woman won gold in skeet in Barcelona in 1992 and the men freaked out and banned women from competition until they could organize a women’s league.
Comment by Suburban Mom Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 12:45 pm
“Women shouldn’t have to compete against anyone who is biologically a man.”
Speaking as sometime who is “biologically a man” and dabbled in triathlons, women competed with me routinely — and won.
– MrJM
Comment by @misterjayem Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 2:04 pm
=== It would now be appropriate for Sen. Preston to issue an apology for spreading this harmful misinformation, rather than going silent and pretending it never happened.===
Well yes, also Rep. Adam Niemerg, Trump, anyone who called the young lady a man.
Since they are so concerned about their daughters, a good start is leading by example to their daughters and sons.
Comment by Da big bad wolf Monday, Aug 5, 24 @ 2:25 pm