Athletes and sports figures are flipping exhausted by the recent wave of transphobic legislation nationwide, so they’re making it known through the #FlippingExhausted hashtag.
So far, 12 states have passed laws banning trans students from playing on sports teams matching their gender identities. Additionally, at least 15 states are enacting or considering bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
The hashtag — launched by Freedom for All Americans, a bipartisan campaign to win LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections nationwide — has given gymnasts, sports fans and allies a chance to speak out against the hateful laws. Here are five hunky sports figures who have already used the hashtag and what they’re saying about transphobia in politics and sports.
1) Connor McCool
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McCool, a gymnast for the University of Illinois, recently competed at the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) men’s gymnastic championships at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma.
While there, McCool wrote in a Twitter post, “Thrilled to be competing at the NCAA championships today. At the same time I’m #flippingexhausted that across the country and in the state of Oklahoma, lawmakers are pushing legislation targeting trans youth and their families. I’m standing with trans youth and you should [too]!”
“NOBODY should be discriminated against for who they are,” he wrote in a longer Instagram caption. “With data showing that over 80% of trans people have contemplated suicide, the only thing they need is our love and support.”
2) Mason Marek
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Marek, a gymnast and former coach who currently works as an exercise physiologist, shared a Twitter video of his flashy floor routine along with the message, “I’m #FlippingExhausted of the anti-trans policies and nature of competitive gymnastics. As a LGBTQ+ MAG [men’s artistic gymnastics] athlete who also trains and competes WAG [women’s artistic gymnastics], my heart breaks over the failures [of] the sport regarding supporting the trans gymnastics community.”
“While within the NAIGC [National Association of Intercollegiate Gymnastics Clubs] there are policies [that] promote inclusivity: in an effort to reduce the binary and gendered aspects of the sport, the NCAA fails to support their trans and non-binary athletes. NCAA needs to do better,” Marek added.
The NCAA’s current policy is for the rules of transgender participation in each sport to be determined by each sport’s national governing body. Outside of that, NCAA guidelines require trans athletes to regularly document their sport-specific testosterone levels four weeks before their sport’s championship selections (and periodically afterward).
3) Donovan Hewitt
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Hewitt, a gymnast with Ohio State University, recently said in a Twitter video, “Competing at the NCAA Men’s Gymnastic Championships is the opportunity of a lifetime, and I’m thrilled to have the chance. But I’m #FlippingExhausted that the lawmakers keep attacking transgender kids and their families.”
“No one should have to face discrimination simply because of who they are,” he added. “To trans youth and their families: I see you, I support you and I believe in you.”
Hewitt is majoring in political science and hopes to attend law school and become an attorney in civil rights or immigration law. He has said that his greatest sports thrill is sticking a dismount that makes the crowd go crazy, but he has also talked about the pressure he feels as one of the few Black gymnasts competing in the NCAA.
“Once we got out of the general (locker room area for gymnasts), I started to realize, ‘Oh, Black people don’t do this sport,’ and I started to realize I was different than everybody else that was winning and placing,” he wrote. “It’s not like I felt something bad was happening, but I just wanted to make sure that I was representing the community well.”
4) Blake Bonkowski
I’m #flippingexhausted of anti-trans legislation impacting trans gymnasts, fans, family members, and media members such as myself. I hope @NCAA will seriously join us in combatting this legislation.
Learn more about what you can do via @freedom4allusa pic.twitter.com/UPb8R7mJdn— Blake ?????? (@HIHOblake) April 15, 2022
Bonkowski — a trans man who co-hosts the LGBTQ gymnastics culture podcast “Half In, Half Out” — posted a Twitter video in which he laid out a powerful case for why sports organizations should oppose trans sports bans.
“There are openly LGBTQ+ athletes in every sport and there are openly trans and non-binary athletes in college gymnastics, and we’re asking them to travel to a place that is not safe for them, and that is not fair,” he said. Traveling to these states can also make other queer sports fans and their families fear for their own safety, he added.
Related: This hunky trans male swimmer is blowing conservative lies about athletes out of the water
Bonkowski has previously talked about how queerphobia made him leave gymnastics.
“Nobody ever said to me, ‘You can’t think you like girls’ or ‘You can’t be here, we think that you’re going to grow up and be a boy.’ People were just like, ‘You’re weird’ or ‘Why are you wearing that?’ or ignoring me or not coaching me… I just knew I wanted to be there, and then eventually I didn’t,” he said.
“Our work doesn’t end until every gym is a safe, welcoming place for an LGBTQ+ child or adult to do gymnastics, to work, or to just be a fan.”
5) Alex Reimer
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Reimer helped draw attention to the #FlippingExhausted hashtag by writing an article about it for the LGBTQ sports website Outsports, where he serves as the deputy managing editor.
“Nearly 240 anti-LGBTQ bills have already been proposed nationwide this year,” he wrote. He also noted that this year’s NCAA women’s gymnastics championship was held in Texas, a state where the governor is trying to prosecute parents of trans kids for child abuse.
Reimer is a former radio broadcaster and longtime sportswriter. He made headlines in 2016 for coming out during an interview on the “Kirk & Callahan” sports talk show on Boston’s WEEI radio station. Reimer then continued to publicly mention his sexuality in his own broadcasts.
“I don’t hide my sexuality when I’m talking with my actual friends, so I never saw a reason to do it on the air,” he wrote of his broadcasting days. “Admittedly, sometimes I took the conversation to unnecessarily extreme levels, boasting about hedonistic late-night bathhouse visits and sweaty nightclub interactions. It turned into a crutch for me, and over time, I made an effort to become more judicious about which parts of my weekend I shared.”
CatholicXXX
Let’s be real, most trans women will have a massive advantage over bio women.
RickHeathen
Bio women…are these trans women you write of gynoids, the female version of a male android? If so, I can see why that would be a problem to let robots play against biological beings.
BennyTheHill
You notice these complaints are coming from biological men and transmen, but NOT biological women.
That’s because most feminists and the average biological woman knows that transwomen should NOT be participating in the sports of biological women.
This rabidness on the part of transwomen supporters is really a denigration of – and a hatred for – biological woman – who are a majority of the population.
white-queer-african
LOL.LOL.LOL. Directed as always at @BennyTheHill. The once transwoman under a previous screenname – one of at least 12 at the last count! No cupcake you have zero space in my brain. Atleast I have a brain, unlike you. So be good and take your meds. Listen to the orders from the asylum caregivers. All will be fine. You are a beautiful hunky 24 year old. Your 41 year old husband is away on business and will be back sometime in 2045. But best of all, your hero Dumph, the orange turd, has just been indicated as president for life. Of a far, far away penal colony!
I am so happy for both of you.
LOL.LOL.LOL.
Josh in OR
If you are fine with banning trans athletes over a perceived ‘advantage’ that being trans gives them, I assume you are also calling for the revocation of Michael Phelps’ gold medals and the banning of people with beneficial genetic mutations (I.e.: longer than average arms with larger than average hands coupled with shorter than average legs and double jointed ankles coupled with muscles that don’t build up lactic acid like the rest of us, etc…) that make any sporting event they take part in inherently unfair to anyone competing against them.
Or is it ONLY trans athletes who have an ‘unfair advantage’ worthy of banning them from the sport they love…?
Stefano
@white-queer-african : Our troll of the month needs care. He needs to be comforted, he needs us. These little conspiratorial beasts need broad, coherent explanations that allow them to preserve some of their beliefs in the face of uncertainty and contradiction by accusing contrary evidence, including science, of being part of the conspiracy. They are in search of meaning, these poor kids. They need to feel secure in their environment and to exercise some control over it when those needs are threatened. They feel powerless and have existential anxiety. Our troll of the month needs us, let’s not let him down.
LegionKeign
So if a 5 foot tall Trans Woman joined a Woman’s basketball team, she still has an advantage?
You’re assuming ALL Trans Woman are 6 feet tall and muscular, right?
And, wait, wouldn’t a Woman’s basketball team want someone over 6 foot tall on their team, right?
Or are we only talking about NON team sports?
See, NOT so cut and dry.
inbama
Until Gender Ideology was created, transition was palliative care approved by psychologist for adult patients with intractable gender dysphoria. No actual transsexual woman imagined she was actually a woman, but for most of these, the surgical/hormonal transition made their lives more bearable.
Gender Ideology created “transnormativity” by turning sex, sexual orientation and even Disorders of Sexual Development (aka “intersex”) into “identities.” That’s how the string of letter came to be attached to LGB.
Transgenders certainly should be allowed to live as the sex they choose, but forcing society to pretend that sex isn’t real is NOT a human right. Men and women and sexual orientation are NOT “identities.” They are REAL.
BennyTheHill
I agree.
I’d rather that the TQ be removed from the LGBTQ.
cuteguy
Why is Billie Jean King all of a sudden silent on this issue? Wasn’t she for equal pay? I’m surprised she’s not being asked about this subject
Kangol2
Billie Jean King responded to Martina Navratilova three years ago saying that science should be the determinative factor in this issue.
Then in 2020 she and numerous other lesbians signed a letter calling for the overturn of a Connecticut policy limiting trans kids from certain sports programs.
jasentylar
What about the individuals born and assigned female at birth that just generate more testosterone than the average woman? Should they too be banned? This reeks of the same ignorance people used when they spoke of Venus and Serena Williams. As if they had an unfair advantage.
BennyTheHill
I always thought that Venus, Serena, and Wendy Williams were either Amazons or drag queens. And I know Wendy is not related to them.
Winsocki
This is an issue for the general female population ( like abortion should be). Let the female athletes decide ….. Where is the trans-men side of this issue? The people that would be competed against should decide what is fair. I am not in a competition …none of my beeswax.
BennyTheHill
Agree.
Sister Bertha Bedderthanyu
Once upon a time when we ran across interesting articles that could benefit everyone on Queerty we could post them. Thanks to whiners whom never ran across anything that THEY found worth sharing they successfully got Queerty to ban posting such articles in our comments.
That notwithstanding in The Washington Post and the NYPost ran an article on a leading psychologist in NY who counseled trans youth (kids who felt they were transgendered) has said that she now strongly feels that it has gotten out of hand. She is on record saying that too many parents that are agreeing with it are more concerned with their personal relationship with their kids and not looking at the overall big picture such as the consequences that ARE going to arise from going trans. Do a google search for the articles because they are very interesting and the articles are very recent.
BennyTheHill
Good point.
Mister P
Transgenderism is very real for a small percentage of the population.
The problem is the culture warriors think it is a problem that should be dealt with by bullying and criminal charges.
Josh in OR
Exactly. It’s a small percentage of athletes. Just like the exceedingly small percentage of athletes who, like Michael Phelps, are genetic mutants who take advantage of those mutations to unfairly trounce NORMAL athletes. If you want to ban the small percentage of trans athletes out there for a perceived advantage they might have over cis athletes, then we need to ALSO ban people with advantageous genetic mutations, like Michael Phelps.
BennyTheHill
Gays are a small percentage of the population too, but if you have watched TV recently, it seems like gays are everywhere.
Just like television commercials. African Americans are 12% of the American population, but they now make up a majority of actors on commercials. And on talk shows, blacks often make up 20-50% of all the hosts/participants.
Kangol2
@BennytheCrackpot, African Americans are now 14% of the US population, and that’s probably an undercount (cf. the 2020 disaster of a US Census under Don the Con, which undercounted Black people in the US), but of course you had to bring up Black people in a post on trans people because you are both a racist and, despite claiming (as MarcyMayer) to be transwoman, a misogynistic transphobe too. Just go the hell away!
Prax07
Biological men shouldn’t be playing on biological women’s teams. Trans people want to participate in sports it should either be on the team corresponding to their birth sex only or create trans specific teams.
Josh in OR
Michael Phelps should be forced to give back all of his gold medals and people like him should be banned from competing in events against NORMAL people. His freakish mutations spit in the face of a just and living God (who makes no mistakes and cannot be blamed for abominations like like homogays or transgenders or Michael Phelps) and give him an unfair advantage against NORMAL athletes.
I propose we set up a registry for genetic mutation (and transgenders and homogays and people with melanin and people who aren’t Christians) and punish anyone who refuses to be registered with the most punitive measures possible. I suggest ‘giant killer robots and concentration camps’, since we’re talking like comic book supervillains and pretending that rationalizes our irrational hatred of things we don’t understand and therefore fear…
BennyTheHill
Good insight!
Polaro
So…we have tons of issues we should be fighting over where we would stand on the high ground and you people decide you want to pick the flimsiest issue where the right has the high ground to fight over. Liberals and their righteous blindness – the perfectors of the circular firing squad. No, men should not be competing against women. No, it does not matter that some mean are pathetic or others are gifted. No, the birth defect argument is silly. Transitioning does not erase the very differences that are why men do not compete against women. It is inherently unfair. Oddly, the same people upset about this are not upset that trans men continue to compete against women.
High ground winning issues like defending trans people’s rights to health care, employment, housing and safety are what smart people would spend their time on. And we wonder why so many people hate us and how we can lose elections to fascists.
BennyTheHill
Democrats and leftists are sinking in their own quicksand.
Today: Washington Post: “President Joe Biden’s job approval rating is 41.3 percent, with 56 percent disapproving in the most recent Gallup poll. This poll is ultimately a bad sign for Democrats facing a tough midterm election and who have closely aligned themselves with him. Biden’s current job approval with Gallup is essentially unchanged from last quarter’s poll, which had him at 41.7 percent.”
inbama
@Polaro
Your every word is correct.
But the Alphabet Soup Movement is not fighting for “trans rights.” It’s a battle to impose Gender Ideology – the belief that men and women are not real – on America. Google Ben Appel’s article in Newsweek, “The New Homophobia.”
Sister Bertha Bedderthanyu
Polaro, from me you get two thumbs up. If I were counseling parents whom have a child wanting to go trans I would focus on two very important things, their dress during adolescence and employment once they enter the most important phase of their life, leaving their nests and supporting themselves.
Kids are kids and a young man who feels he is a young girl will probably dress accordingly. Does he dress like a horny slut or a conservative church girl. What happens when it comes dating time? What happens when they get a job and decide they want to go up the ladder of the employer? I would stress to the parents to think back to the jobs they had, the people they loved on those jobs, the bosses they hated and the company policies of such things such as dress codes and how bosses get once they feel threatened by subordinates whom they KNOW are a threat to the boss’ position. Corporate America is a vicious jungle. I think it best they wait till they are in their 20’s and then let THEM decided after a few jobs here and there along with college if its a smart idea to go trans. Employers are reluctant to hire or promote trans people because they know how the work environment on most jobs are, toxic. The overall majority of men and women already don’t like being yelled at by their current bosses for poor performances. What do you think the reaction will be if a trans person who is your boss turns into a tyrant (and it will happen because sometimes you have to kick ass to get production). There is a lot involved in going trans and I would not be surprised if a lot of young men and women rethought their decision once it came time to financially support themselves. Landlords couldn’t care less what they do in their apartment as long as the rent gets paid. Think long and hard about the decision you are making is all I’m saying. If you have a minute do a google search on teenage trans boys and girls and be sure to look at the images of many of them. Many of those pics are jaw dropping and their dress is unbelievable, especially the ones dressed as little sluts. What does an employer do, the politically correct thing that will upset his production and possibly lead to lawsuits up the yang-yang for doing so or be safe than sorry and tell the applicant to apply at the guy’s business down the street?
tjack47
Girls are on football teams at the high school level with the “bio boys”. I’ve only heard praise for them. Wtf is wrong with people?