XX-XY Athletics is suing the state of Colorado and I've been watching Gilmore Girls

That's a wacky headline, I'll admit

As you may or may not have heard, XX-XY Athletics is suing the state of Colorado over the new law HB 25-1312 which demands that we all further the lie that sex is not binary and that men can be women if they just say they are.

At XX-XY Athletics, we use biologically correct language. If we can’t do so, the issue of men in women’s sports cannot be discussed. Because if we call those men women, then we are just talking about women in women’s sports — which no one has an issue with!

This law forces Coloradans to adhere to an ideology that is in violation of actual truth. And certainly in violation of my brand’s — and my — beliefs. The state is censoring anyone who disagrees with the notion that men can be women if they just say they are.

We are filing this lawsuit to fight for our — and every Coloradan’s, and every American’s — right to free speech. You can read more about it here. And here is the complaint.

I’ll write more on it later. In the meantime, some lighter pop culture fare.

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I’ve been watching Gilmore Girls of late. (That was an abrupt shift in content!)

Yes, the show that debuted on October 5, 2000, on The WB and became a flagship series for the network. The show ran for seven seasons, with the last being aired on The CW on May 15, 2007.

I didn’t watch it when it ran. I had had my first child in September of 2000 and wasn’t watching much TV in general. I do remember watching the first season of Survivor (and many subsequent seasons), which premiered in May 2000. Other than that, I was relatively TV free, if memory serves.

I started watching Gilmore Girls recently with my daughter. But she lost interest — it’s a little too old for her yet — and I continued in my spare 45 minutes here and there as some zone out time. I’m almost done with the 2nd season. There are seven in total and a revival mini-series which aired on Netflix in 2016. I’ll wade through all of them, because why not?

I’m enjoying reading the various takes on the show as much as the show itself. The takes swing wildly from “real time” back in the early 2000s to the look backs from people watching it after the fact like me, who are then applying 2020s aesthetics and cultural conventions to a show made more than 20 years earlier.

For instance, this Glamour piece written during covid, delights in Rory’s misfortune: Rory Gilmore wearing a community service vest brings the sunshine back to my soul.

But back in real time, people mostly liked Rory (I’ll get to who Rory is below), one of the show’s two main characters. In retrospect she’s too white, too spoiled, too privileged. So her misfortune delights modern day viewers.

Here’s the premise of the whole show:

The show centers around Lorelai Gilmore and her teenaged daughter Rory, the child she had as a teen, out of wedlock. Lorelai is from a wealthy family and she ran away when she had her daughter at just 16 years old. She ran away — one town over — and made a life for herself and her baby. In the present day of the show, Lorelai manages an Inn in a quaint little town called Stars Hollow — one town over from Hartford, Connecticut — and the first season starts with Rory getting into a ritzy private high school that Lorelai cannot afford. So, Lorelai puts her tail between her legs and begrudgingly asks her estranged parents to help with tuition. Her mom agrees in exchange for Friday night dinners with the duo, and thus the show begins.

I’m enjoying it. It does a feel a bit “retro” — there is an earnestness and sweetness to it, that you don’t get much of now. And this is part of the show’s appeal to me. 2025 Jen loves earnest!

We’re supposed to think of Lorelai as edgy and hip — she’s got a coffee “addiction” and wears concert tees and low rise jeans. Her daughter Rory is smart and nerdy — she reads a ton, has classic books stacked in her room and is always trying to get her sweet but a bit dense boyfriend Dean to read Moby Dick when he just wants to fix cars. She loves old movies and has a travel bug, indicated by the posters of foreign lands all over her bedroom. She desperately wants to go to Harvard.

Given I’m only on season 2 and Rory is still in high school I don’t yet know whether this dream comes true. I’m avoiding reading ahead on plot points. Just reading ahead on cultural criticism. Which is mostly — predictably — from a 2020 lens: the show is racist.

In hindsight, both cultural critics and regular viewers insist the show is too white.

Never mind that there are non-white characters. Rory’s best friend is Korean. The concierge at the Inn that Lorelai runs is black.

The commenters insist that the non-white characters are not developed. But we know a lot about them. Lane, the Korean friend, has an overbearing mother (a Tiger Mom, in today’s parlance) who doesn’t let her out of the house much, and she’s a music buff, hiding live show recordings under the floorboards of her bedroom so her mom doesn’t find out that she loves Iggy Pop.

Michel, the concierge, is grumpy and a militant health nut who eats no carbs. His accent is vaguely French but his origin is unknown, at least to me. He is also vaguely gay, which I imagine will be revealed at some point, though who knows (don’t tell me).

Sookie, the chef at the Inn and Lorelai’s best friend, is fat.

Lorelai is a single mom and can’t afford to fix the termite problem in her house.

There’s range! And who cares! Why are we counting!?

Anyway, I’m finding the whole show kind of charming and a throw back to pre-woke-ness.

In one episode when Rory is told by a very ambitious fellow student that her good grades won’t be enough to get into Harvard — she needs extracurriculars like community service — she shouts in a panic at her boyfriend Dean: I need to teach a retard to play softball!

My eyes popped! We could say that then?! On TV, not just on X! I forgot! In 2000, not 1980?

And this brings me back to the law suit. The word retard has fallen out of favor, despite its ubiquitousness in the 80s. Though it is making a comeback through force of will and the giant middle finger the heretical are waving at the woke-sters. But it fell out of favor not because it was legislated. I don’t believe — and I could be wrong — that it is legally prohibited to use the word anywhere.

You cannot legislate politeness or even respect. Which is what HB 25-1312 is doing. It is censoring us all in the name of “respect.” And that is censorship and an egregious violation of the First Amendment.