A little over a year ago, Mackenzie McKee used a racist term to refer to a famous Black woman.
Arguably, it might have been less scandalous if her intentions had not been insulting.
This week, Mackenzie repeated almost the exact same thing, this time while discussing the transgender community.
It’s bad enough to refer to “a trans,” like an object, but what was really malicious was Mackenzie’s message of discrimination.
Mackenzie McKee has once again gotten herself in hot water, and it’s no one’s fault but her own.
At a time when countless voices of bigotry are targeting vulnerable children and teens, she decided to add her voice to the mix.
Taking to Facebook, she began with: “Listening to a Trans herself understand what’s right and wrong.”
“Without attacking, or online bullying,” Mackenzie insisted.
“It’s OK to stand up for the biologically born women,” she insisted nonsensically, “who are being done wrong.”
While that was obviously wrong, she apparently felt that it was okay to say because she was citing Caitlyn Jenner.
Caitlyn, who has participated in women’s golf tournaments in recent years, has decried inclusive athletics.
This call for segregation between cisgender and transgender athletes might sound odd coming from a trans woman who (appropriately) competes in women’s sports.
But we have to remember that Cait’s positions and endorsements have never had to make sense, and that her claims to champion the trans community have been met with suspicion for years.
Before we touch upon Mackenzie’s actual message, we have to talk about how she said it.
That is of course what is catching people’s attention in the worst way.
You don’t just talk about someone as “a Trans” and not catch any flack. It’s dehumanizing and weird.
“This is so ignorant and cruel, it’s infuriating. Mackenzie should have been fired for racism already,” one commenter noted.
The comment continued: “They let it go and now she’s branching into transphobia.”
An additional person noted: “‘A trans’. Nice, Mack. Keep digging that hole.”
“She’s so stupid,” another remarked.
That person continued: It’s clear she isn’t familiar with these communities or she would clearly know you don’t say ‘the trans.'”
A commenter wrote: “It’s more than just using the right pronouns Mack.”
Just like when talking about the gay community, the Black community, or most groups of people, you don’t refer to people as objects.
Someone talking about Mackenzie would say “a woman” or, weirdly, “a female person,” but not generally as “a female.”
Calling Mackenzie “a female” or “a cis” for that matter would be impolite in most contexts.
Impoliteness might be overlooked and ignorance can be solved with education, but when we’re talking about marginalized communities, it gets so much worse.
Without repeating the language ourselves, we all know how bigots talk about their most hated marginalized groups.
It’s not always slurs. Sometimes it’s language just like Mackenzie’s.
But this isn’t just about poorly chosen words.
When you find out that you’re using the wrong terminology, you apologize, you change, and you move on so that you don’t sound like a bigot.
The sentiments of bigots are an awful lot like Mackenzie’s as well.
There is, simply put, no way to call for a minority group to play segregated sports without, you know, it being discrimination.
The United States legal system has actually addressed this multiple times.
Separate but seemingly “equal” facilities, activities, and more are not actually equal.
Mackenzie, like other bigots who are stirring up a frenzy over trans athletes in schools and in adult athletics, is clearly thrilled to be able to cite Cait.
We all know that there are certain grifters who are happy to trade upon their identities for money and clout.
What Caitlyn has is money. What she likely craves is acceptance from mainstream conservatives — and she’ll throw anyone under the bus to get it.
Caitlyn siding with anti-trans bigots won’t get her the love that she needs.
But it does allow her to be a weaponized into a bludgeon to try to rob trans students of their dignity and right to participate in society as equals.
It’s sad that human rights are up for debate at all.
To be clear, there is no medical or scientific basis for segregating trans sports from cis sports.
In particular, many of these conversations are talking about young trans students.
Unlike Cait, some trans youths have been able to go on life-saving puberty blockers — so any imagined “biological” difference argue goes out the window.
Speaking of “biology” … literally it is not the same as gender. Anatomy is not gender.
Some trans folks get top surgery. Some get bottom surgery. Some get neither.
Why? Because gender is part of who you are, not what your body happens to look like.
Sometimes, transphobes — and even some people who just honestly don’t know any better — refer to a “biological woman” or “biological man.”
We’re all biological people. Maybe one day, people will inhabit synthetic bodies, but all of this muscle and skin and bone … that’s biology.
What they really mean is “has or once had a vagina” or “has or once had a penis,” and that’s simply none of our business.
Also, if someone’s sport supposedly involves somebody’s genitals, it doesn’t sound like something that student athletes should be doing at any school.
(In general, it would be ideal if creepy adults would stop talking about children’s genitals altogether, whether they are cis or trans)
We can’t make Caitlyn or Mackenzie become good people, but Mackenzie could at least be more respectful when she’s using her platform to spew malicious bigotry.