Catarina Macario's Value
Protect Trans Kids
I have been thinking about this for a couple of days…basically since I decided to start my humble little Substack.
The focus of this is going to be, like the tag line, the intersection between (wo)soccer, society, and shitposting. So I’d love to just try mess around on here with the two national team tournaments I was able to watch this year (SheBelieves and HeBelieves in England. While the US was awaiting the game in a suburb in south east Reykjavík (weird that Iceland ALSO has a Frisco), and Millie Bright was scoring for fun in Blighty, there was an announcement out of Austin the previous day.
The governor of Texas was going to direct his Department of Family and Protective Services to “conduct a prompt and thorough investigation” of any reported instances of minors undergoing “elective procedures for gender transitioning.” He also encouraged “licensed professionals” and “members of the general public” to report the parents of transgender minors to state authorities if it appears the minors are receiving gender-affirming medical care”. This was 1 day after the attorney general of Texas stated that “ allowing minors to receive transition care such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery is child abuse under state law.”
The state of Texas is essentially trying to make being openly trans illegal for Texans.
Wednesday might have been Caterina Macario’s breakout game for the national team. After an Olympics where she played 7 minutes, she’s been more present in Vlatko’s lineups in the 6 of the 9 friendlies since, mostly playing CM before the SheBelieves. In the last game against Iceland, she scored two bangers for the US. The last one was off a through ball that Mallory Pugh overhit; Macario chased it down, took a look at goal, collected, and in one motion, turned and chipped the ball past a frozen keeper into the back of the net.
When she ran to the sideline to celebrate, she pulled down her sleeve, and on her wrist tape was “Protect Trans Kids”. I saw the same message on wrap from Andi Sullivan, Becky Sauerbrunn, Midge Purce, and Kristie Mewis.
The woso community being what it is, the vast majority of messages were positive on the internet. However a cursory look at Reddit, Twitter, and Instagram brought people who don’t care about women’s sports, or queer people, or women in general other than to use them as a bludgeon against other groups they hate, out of the woodwork to comment just how much they don’t like trans people and how damaging being trans is to kids. Beyond the outright disrespect given to literal children, is the insidious “well this doesn’t matter”, or “this is just a political stunt” and the like, which screams “the only people who could be harmed are trans kids, so it’s not worth our time to worry about.”
And of course the standby…”Keep politics out of sports”. I’ve been or played in hundreds of sanctioned “official” games of just the five major sports. Every single one I’ve been to has played the National Anthem. A number of them have had militaristic elements to them. God Bless America played in the 7th inning of baseball games. Military jet flyovers. You know, non-political symbols based on the strength and supremacy of America.
But when an athlete, rather than a team or league, decides to stand up for something they believe in, like the state of Texas shouldn’t be creating a state-sponsored system of child abuse just because they don’t like a person’s gender identity, shut up and dribble.
You want to talk about the value of using Macario as a false 9? Great, Cat wants you to talk about the basic humanity of trans youth.
All I can think of is if you really believe this, and you really want “politics out of sports”, you need to keep your “politics out of human rights and dignity”.