The specter of an Italian woman being pummeled by either a transgender or intersex opponent at the Olympics this week has the internet aflutter once again. Most conservatives have accepted women boxing each other, but men beating women is still beyond the pale, thankfully.
Elite society disagrees. The same people who believe that women need special protections from male violence seem to express perverse glee at the sight of a transgender boxer punching a woman in the face. The way in which East Germany would stack its women’s Olympic teams with men was once a worldwide joke, but nobody’s laughing now.
Belief in transgenderism, the idea that male and female are fluid categories that can be altered at will with drugs and surgeries, is a high status belief. Believing what nearly all mankind believed until about ten years ago — that boys are boys, girls are girls, and there’s no in-between — marks you as an ignorant, superstitious, low-class rube.
A corollary to this belief is the idea that men and women are entirely interchangeable. Men on average don’t have greater upper body strength than women, nor do they have greater body mass. That’s a dangerous right wing conspiracy theory, obviously.
The nature of beliefs that are high status yet irrational is that there is tremendous social pressure to accept the party line. If all the elites agree that Bruce Jenner is now and always has been a woman, then saying otherwise could get you ostracized from polite society, so you’d better not risk it.
I am often critical of Gov. Brad Little, but he did the right thing in 2020 when he signed House Bill 500, the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act. Rep. Barb Ehardt, a longtime athlete and coach, not only sponsored the bill but has worked with organizations and state legislatures to get similar bills passed throughout the nation. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida followed Little’s lead when he signed a similar bill in 2021.
Leftist Democrats and LGBTQ+ activists attempt to portray laws like this as nothing more than anti-trans bigotry, but remember that they have adopted the irrational belief that men and women are entirely interchangeable. It’s a luxury belief, a completely abstract idea they can safely repeat to keep the cocktail party invitations coming. For the girls who are forced to play contact sports against boys, however, reality is far more dangerous.
In 2022, high school volleyball player Payton McNabb was left partially paralyzed and brain damaged when a larger boy spiked a ball directly into her head.
If leftists address catastrophic injuries like this at all, it’s usually with a shrug. Athletes get hurt, right? The LGBTQ+ cause is more important than hard-hitting reality. How many girls must be sacrificed for that cause?
More than ten years ago, Steve Sailer noticed that the drive to impose gay marriage on America was reaching its conclusion and wondered what new cause would next be embraced by upper class progressives. He correctly guessed transgenderism after seeing how sports media treated Fallon Fox, a male MMA fighter who identified as a woman for the purposes of bashing in the brains of real women.
This cause has not only resulted in injuries to female athletes, but irreversible damage to thousands of young boys and girls who have been told that changing their genders is as simple and easy as changing their shirts. There are long term worldwide consequences for pretending that a lie is the truth.
Ironically, nations that are more left-leaning than ours, such as the United Kingdom, are beginning to ban child gender transitions, acknowledging the undeniable scientific fact that these drugs and surgeries harm children rather than help them. Unfortunately, American Democrats have fully embraced the LGBTQ+ agenda, choosing to fight against protecting children and female athletes by clinging to this big lie.
The only solution to this problem is for more people to have the courage to speak up and say no. Female athletes forced by their schools or conferences to compete against men must be willing to refuse, even if it means losing face, scholarships, or facing media backlash. Political leaders need to take action where possible, not only by following Gov. Little’s example in banning boys from girls’ sports teams but also by publicly affirming that boys are boys and girls are girls.
I remember when conservatives opposed Title IX, arguing it was unfair to impose equality between men’s and women’s athletics. Most conservatives have since come around to supporting the law, just as they support women’s boxing, even as it has been weaponized against real women. The Biden Administration is now using existing laws to force schools to accommodate the transgender agenda, putting both athletes and children at risk. It’s time to say no.
That’s all it takes: just say no. The best antidote to a lie, no matter how big, is to tell the truth.
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