IGF CultureWatch

Rep. Jim Jordan, head of the conservative Freedom Caucus in the House, is under attack by the left (here’s the Vox account) because before his political career, when he was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State, he did not report that the team doctor had sexually fondled male student wrestlers during physical exams and that the doctor had joined wrestlers in the showers. There were also accusations that “voyeurs” had engaged in locker room sexual activity while the team trained and showered.

Jordan said he didn’t know about the inappropriate activity, which has only recently become public.

I wonder, however, if Jordan had known about and reported this alleged behavior to the authorities, whether the left would be accusing him of having promoted a homophobic witch hunt at Ohio State.

More. The New York Times reports:

One wrestler denied the allegations entirely, saying that the accusers were “seeing dollar signs.” Others wrote that they had never witnessed or heard of [the doctor] acting inappropriately.

But [a public relations firm] also sent along a statement from one wrestler who wrote that in the locker room, there were “definitely inappropriate things that in my opinion were pretty disgusting going on all around us,” and another who wrote that he had been abused by [the doctor] and never told anyone but his father.

Andrew Sullivan blogs (second item):

Children and adolescents are subject to a myriad competing impulses — hormonal, social, familial, psychological — and some early identities wax or wane away as maturity arrives. And so the movement to assign a trans identity to children who exhibit gender dysphoria has some great benefits, in relieving acute psychic pressure, but also inevitably, has some drawbacks. If a gay or a straight kid happens to show signs of behaving as or identifying with the other gender, they can be prematurely defined as trans, and start on a track that will not work for them. …

We should be attentive to gender dysphoria, and watch for signs of a kid being genuinely trans, and care for him or her. That’s been a big and hugely welcome change from the gruesome past. But to automatically equate non-stereotypical gender behavior with being trans is a dangerous overreach. Gender dysphoria affects countless young gay boys as well as lesbian girls, along with straight boys and girls who don’t fit gender stereotypes but are nowhere near being trans or gay. Keeping that in mind is also essential. And that, to my mind, requires an abundance of caution and patience, which is why I favor a ban on irreversible sex reassignment surgery and hormone blockers until the age of 18. I’m all for supporting trans youth in their identity and dignity. But if you’re not regarded as mature enough to vote, you should not be regarded as mature enough to alter your body and your gender irreversibly.

The danger in the alternative is that gay boys and girls can actually be mis-defined as trans by well-meaning parents or therapists. Which, it seems to me, is as homophobic as defining us as straight.

Wowwwww @sullydish went there https://t.co/2YA8ysLemQ pic.twitter.com/HGmKX54Ovb

— Katie Herzog (@kittypurrzog) June 22, 2018

More. Sullivan makes this point as well:

There’s also the reactionary element in prematurely defining gay people as trans. There’s a reason why one of the countries with the most sex reassignment surgeries is Iran. For the mullahs, it is homosexuality or ambiguous sexuality that is the problem. Surgically reassigning gender is the solution. Of course there’s a world of difference between forced sex reassignment surgery in Iran and voluntary transitioning in the West. But for some reactionaries, trans people who adhere to gender roles are preferable to gay people who don’t.