At Wednesday's House DOGE Committee hearing, Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-CA) decried GOP attacks on transgender athletes in women's sports.
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00:00Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, all of you all, for coming today.
00:07There is so much to say, but I have such a limited time, and I actually have a question.
00:16But I also want to refer back, historically, we have been having these conversations for
00:24quite some time.
00:26Ms. Gross, do you recall, in 2000, and I believe it was 2009, the Castor-Simoyenia case?
00:38Correct, yes.
00:40Could you tell folks a little bit about this case?
00:42I have some document on it, too, but could you give me a little background?
00:48This was an Olympic sprinter, and there were all sorts of assumptions that she was not
00:57a woman, and she was subject to all sorts of invasive tests, but also bullying and harassment,
01:05because she was assumed to be not feminine enough for the sport, basically.
01:09Yeah.
01:10So, you know, this case, she was a black woman, and she was assumed...
01:17South African, I think, yeah.
01:18South African black.
01:19Mm-hmm.
01:20And she was assumed to be too fast, too big, and, of course, she was asked to undergo testosterone
01:32testing and medical treatment to reverse her natural testosterone that was in her body,
01:37but she was born female.
01:41That's correct.
01:43So, I just want to make it clear where we are.
01:52On March 25th, in this very room, my colleague, Ms. Presley, she introduced an amendment to
02:05this body.
02:09And the amendment was pretty clear, and it said, it requested that this body vote down
02:18anything, any mention of any policy that would ban racism, that would push forth any clarity
02:34around us insinuating as a full body that the Trump administration, when he moved executive
02:41orders, that they wouldn't mention or allude to any kind of segregation.
02:48My colleagues on the right voted that amendment down, every single one of them.
02:54So even if you're not transgender, folks who are watching, I want you to understand why
03:01this moment is so important.
03:04We have a party who has been very clear about what their intentions are for this country.
03:14Very clear about what their intentions are for this country.
03:19I think it's bringing us back to a 1950s America where segregation was legal.
03:25Who is to say that your African-American daughter, because of her BMI, will be subject to the same
03:32kind of conversation?
03:34Who is to say, if we move forth in this conversation, that your daughter, who was born a female, would
03:44be subjugated, and subject, I should say, to inspection of her genitals when she went up
03:54to the mount to play t-ball because she looked a little bit different from other folk.
04:00There's a slippery slope here.
04:03I definitely want to talk about race, fraud, and abuse in the 119th Congress.
04:11It's important, and it's also important for us to realize that the cruelty of not centering
04:18all Americans, how difficult that is, but it is ingrained in who we are to figure out how
04:26we love and support and not pathologize anyone.
04:33Let's be careful.
04:35Ms. Gross, I wanted to give you an opportunity, while my time is limited, to share anything
04:44else about, really, what we're seeing here and how the slippery slope can maybe go a little
04:49bit farther and more horrific than it already is.
04:53Well, I'd say it's already happening.
04:55We're already seeing girls being challenged for not being feminine enough, for being too tall,
05:01too fast, too good at what they do, by other parents, by school officials.
05:07Discrimination never begins and ends with the small group of people who are initially targeted.
05:12It will extend and harm all girls.
05:17Thank you so much.