As I write this, we are being told we must all support the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. We must support her because she is black. We must support her because she is a woman.
In 2016, the legacy media told us the only way for Americans to prove that we’re not all just a bunch of misogynist pigs was to elect Hillary Clinton to the White House.
The #MeToo movement told us – rightly so – that women in entertainment and in corporate cultures have been threatened, bullied and silenced for decades and it’s high time to start taking their complaints seriously. They have suffered in silence long enough.
For the last few years we’ve been lecturing each other nonstop about the shabby treatment of women in public areas of our society. It has led to some important revelations and even more important discussions. So it is tragically disappointing that the same people who have been pushing us to recognize a person’s womanhood above anything else in her life, and to believe her without question when she expresses her experience as a woman, are now telling women to shut up about their pain in being forced to compete against males in their own Title IX-protected sports.
By now we all know the saga of UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas, who is a male who identifies as a woman and as such has been allowed to compete in women’s athletics. The result has been to push women off the podium and threaten their collegiate athletic careers. The women of UPenn’s swim team and their colleagues across the sport have been begging for anyone to listen to them. A person can “identify” as anything they want, but that doesn’t change the reality of biology. Lia Thomas is a man in a man’s body when it comes to sports, and women have been so vulnerable to the male domination of their own pursuits that we had to build an entire amendment to protect them.
Lia Thomas is one single person, standing in defiance of a sea – or pool, as it were – of young, intelligent, accomplished women who are begging for the return of sanity and simply the opportunity to compete in their chosen sport as women, against women. They are not asking to go the moon. They just don’t want a man in their competitions.
Swimming World Magazine editor John Lohn pointed out the seemingly obvious in a recent screed on the insanity of what is currently happening in NCAA pools.
Because the NCAA only required one year of hormone-suppressant therapy for a transgender female to compete in women’s sports, Thomas was eligible to race for the Quakers. And, to be clear, Thomas has followed all rules. The problem is that the NCAA’s guidelines were based on outdated science and didn’t account for the advantages of Thomas undergoing male puberty and significant testosterone production. A 6-3 frame. Greater natural strength. Larger hands and feet. Enhanced lung capacity. None of these edges, for the record, can be fully mitigated.
It boggles the mind that we are in a place in human history where the physical differences between a man and a woman must be explained. But here we are. The entirety of biology, science and human history is on the side of the women fighting for equality, and yet here we are, telling them to shut up and take it. The brave women who have come forward with their pain have been subjected to bullying and cancel culture. The Virginia Tech swimmer who was bumped out of a spot by Thomas’ podium placement wrote a letter to the NCAA explaining her frustrations as a female athlete.
She was rewarded with a suspension from Twitter* and accusations of being a TERF – a trans-exclusionary radical feminist, for you normies out there.
— marthadurham (@marthadurham512) March 21, 2022
This is the same type of bullying and aggression that the Hollywood version of #MeToo fought against as recently as right now. Harvey Weinstein used his position of authority to trap and coerce women into participating in his perversion, and cancelled their professional viability and livelihoods if they refused. Those who spoke out were further marginalized and insulted as whores or gold-diggers.
It’s no different than what is happening to female athletes and their supporters across the country and the world at this very moment. Women like Gyorgy are accused of being TERFs, sore losers, bigots and idiots. Believe all women? Sure…unless they’re saying something mean about a man.
What is happening to female athletes in the UPenn pool and beyond is nothing short of misogyny. It is nonsensical and in an era where Science™ has become the sole measure of truth, the anti-science wing of humanity has been allowed to bully young, defenseless women in the name of a social trend that has absolutely nothing to do with human biology or science. It certainly has nothing to do with equality.
Do we believe all women, or just the ones who used to be men?
*Editor’s Note: There is some question as to whether or not the suspended account actually belongs to Reka Gyorgy.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member