I wrote today about a 12-year-old trans girl in Kentucky who started a girls field hockey team at her middle school this year. She had a blast while expanding the opportunity for girls at her school to play sports. As it happens, she's the only trans girl in the entire state of Kentucky playing sports at the middle or high school level.

She was, I should say, because the general assembly just passed a law kicking her off the team. Not her particularly of course, but all trans girls. She just happens to be the only one.

She testified at a state senate committee hearing to oppose the proposed law, and she was awesome. I listened to the whole thing so I could transcribe her words for my story, but my comment here isn't really about her words.

It's about the rest of the hearing, in which speaker after speaker talked about trans girls like her harming other girls. Taking opportunities away from girls. Yada yada. Casting her as the villain.

That's gas-lighting oppression. There sat a 12-year-old trans girl who had created more opportunities for sports for girls at her middle school than any of those senators had ever even tried, and they were trying to make HER feel bad for hurting girls.

Unfortunately, that's the state of politics for queer people in the United States today. Oppression is absolutely the right word right now.