Lisa - Oregon Voter Attends Townhall
An Oregon Voter's Experience of attending a town hall to meet her district Representatives.
Town hall included Senate President Rob Wagner, House Rep Jules Walters and House Rep Daniel Nguyen. Moderated by Lake Oswego Mayor Joe Buck
The town hall was 1 hour. Questions were submitted ahead of time and were preselected by their admins as to which would be answered. Of course, these were just the questions the panel wanted to answer. So the hour-long town hall was a bit useless, full of sound bites about what they did in the short session and that they promised to work in a bi-partisan way in the upcoming long session. Mayor Joe Buck even applauded legislators on learning how to work with legislators from rural Oregon... Something he doesn't have to do as a mayor in Lake Oswego.
I definitely felt un-represented by the leaders in my district!
After the town hall, I had a brief conversation with my Rep. Jules Walters:
I asked, "What is your stance on boys participating in girls sports, activities, and having access to private spaces like locker rooms, etc. and can we count on you to help preserve girls sports and activities for girls and uphold the original intent of Title IX?"
After pretending to be confused what I was talking about, she then said “I have a trans son so this is a sensitive subject for me. I am more inclined to err on the side of inclusion not exclusion.” When I asked her what "erring on the side of inclusion" looked like, she didn’t have any suggestions.
I, of course, told her that I thought everyone should absolutely get to participate. That no one is banning someone from participating in a sport or activity. I do wish I had mentioned that since I am a woman and I have a high school daughter and I believe in supporting girls and women, this is also a sensitive subject for me.
During the town hall, Rep. Walters mentioned that she first got into politics when she saw how pathetic the girls' softball fields were in West Linn and wanted to do something about it. I told her that her support of girls' sports in that way was inspiring and I'm thankful for her support of girls. She then backtracked and said she should have been more careful in her terminology and not said “girls softball” and “boys baseball” because it isn't really about girls and boys.
When I asked her, "if she believed there are any differences between men and women and girls and boys"? she said, "I should chat with my doctor and they will have plenty of resources to help me answer that question."
I wish I had been on my toes enough to clarify that I wasn’t questioning whether there are biological differences between boys and girls so I didn't need to consult my doctor. I was asking if she believed there are differences between men and women but she wouldn't answer that.
At one point, Representative Walters indicated that it "wasn’t so long ago that black people had to fight to be able to participate in sports", so she wasn't comfortable going back to any sort of discussion where we segregate who gets to play in what category.
This startled me because with this argument, it means anywhere in the world where we use categories of any type, it could be likened to the racism that kept swimming pools and schools segregated. In fact, there was much applause earlier in the town hall about the fact that the entire upper parking lot is for electric/hybrid vehicles only. Meanwhile, since I drive a gas car, I was forced to use a different parking lot farther away. Do I get to compare that to racial segregation? Of course not! Do we get to liken ALL use of categories back to the days of racial segregation?
Representative Walters also mentioned that she "knows” this is mostly about scholarships and she believes the people giving scholarships for this stuff can figure out who they actually want to give a scholarship to. I disagree that it’s “all about scholarships”. This is about fair competition. About safety. About girls having the ability to go to the bathroom, change in a locker room or go on an overnight field trip without being forced to see male genitalia or share accommodations with males (and vice versa). And yes... It is also about not erasing women from record books and history books, replacing females with males (as has happened dozens of times this year in athletic events and "woman of the year" awards).
At one point , an assistant of some sort swooped in to say that he was a tennis player (maybe back in college or something) and that one of the best programs he ever participated in was one that was based on skill level and had boys and girls of all ages playing against each other.I told him that I played coed intramural ultimate frisbee in college so this isn't about preventing girls and boys from ever touching the same field or court! But that when something IS differentiated by sex, it should be differentiated by sex, not gender identity. And with his example, it would also mean he thought age differences were not important either... So wouldn't 16-year-old girls be able to sign up for a 12u team and take away opportunities from 12-year-olds?
I asked if this example of boys and girls playing in the same program mean that they (Representative Walters and this assistant) were in support of getting rid of all concept of having “boys" sports” and “girls" sports.They said this was something to think about!
This seems anti Title IX and anti woman to me.
And not just in sports. Our differences are something to celebrate and champion, not ignore.
Lisa - Oregon Voter HD37