Utah’s Republican governor and other state officials are calling out a conservative state school board member for insinuating in an online post that a member of a girl’s high school basketball team was transgender, when in fact she is not.

Utah’s Republican governor and lieutenant governor are urging the State Board of Education to take action against a conservative board member whose social media post questioning the gender of a high school basketball player incited a tirade of threats against the girl.

Natalie Cline, who has previously come under investigation for inflammatory comments about LGBTQ+ students, singled out the Salt Lake City athlete in a since-deleted Facebook post that falsely insinuated the girl was transgender. Cline later apologized for provoking a firestorm of vulgar comments after she learned that the girl was not in fact trans.

But the school board member defended her initial suspicions, saying that a national push to normalize transgender identities makes it “normal to pause and wonder if people are what they say they are.”

Many Republican politicians have successfully spread fear about transgender individuals to garner support for athletic bans and bathroom restrictions that threaten to push trans people out of community spaces. The sponsors say such policies are needed to protect women and girls. But as laws banning trans girls from girls’ sports have spread across Republican-led states, false accusations such as this have threatened the safety of both trans and non-trans youths.

  • @Beldarofremulak
    3•10 months ago

    That’s just Christianity and it’s a product of the conflict between the Old and New testament. It’s by design. That’s what the whole council of nicea did. The chose what was and wasn’t in the Bible and those influential people chose what worked for them. Why would they choose the letters of a pharisee who went into the desert with his followers, saw big J “after falling off a horse/camel”, and the only evidence is the word of those followers? Jesus freaking hated the Pharisee. They chose those letters because they work for them. Now we have this guide book that people can look to to justify being awesome to everyone and killing children for making fun of a bald man. The whole turn the other cheek thing is suspicious too. Sounds like something an institution that takes advantage of people would want so they can get away with screwing you over. Yah know. You HAVE to forgive them.