Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

I have often written about the contemporary trend of pandering to the demands of the smallest, most mentally ill factions among us. 

I speak of doing whatever various Trans this or thats, and their leftist supporters, demand: men in girl’s/women’s bathrooms, and men dominating women’s sports.  The lunacy continues as sport sanctioning organizations, particularly in leftist states, willingly participate in the destruction of women’s sports.  I haven’t written about this for awhile (most recently here, here and here), but Dani Shugart, at T-nation.com, has a useful summary.

*In February 2019, two trans athletes (who were born male and identify as female) took first and second place at the Connecticut state high school track championship.

*In 2018, before the USAPL changed their rules, JayCee Cooper, a trans powerlifter, set records in women’s bench press after only having powerlifted for a year.

*In 2018, trans cyclist, Rachel McKinnon, took first among the women at the UCI Masters Track Cycling World Championship.

*In 2017, transgender weightlifter, Laurel Hubbard, set master’s world records and won the Commonwealth Games in Australia.

*In 2014, transgender pro MMA fighter Fallon Fox beat Tamikka Brents, giving her a concussion and broken orbital bone.

This is just a small glimpse of sporting events in which trans women – who were born male and went through puberty as males – have dominated. And we can expect to see more of this as the amount of male-born athletes signing up to compete as women increases.

Why would men want to compete as women?  The contemporary line is they “identify” as women, so society must accommodate their desires.  They have a “right” to be who/whatever they want to be, and everyone else must not only surrender their rights, but must praise their bravery, integrity and superior morality in seeking to be whatever they want to be today.  The same thing applies if they want to be something else tomorrow.

Reality, which is for the moment in decline, is substantially different.  Men want to play women’s sports because men who would never have a chance at winning when competing against other men can suddenly advance to the highest ranks of women’s sports.  Reality should also dictate there are two–only two–easily identifiable genders, and no one is obligated to help anyone else pretend to be anything they choose to be, nor is anyone obligated to praise such people for their pretense.  Noteworthy is the near total lack of women identifying as men crushing male opponents.  Even women taking male hormones do not have the physical structure, muscle density, size, strength and endurance necessary to do that.  This is a single gender, political war, and the victims are unquestionably real, biological women.

Americans are willing to leave others alone, so long as they return the favor.  This is not, in any way, prejudicial toward such people, in fact, leaving others alone is an essential element of individual liberty and the social contract.  Much of our current political schism is due to those that think themselves, by virtue of their great moral and intellectual superiority, uniquely qualified, indeed, destined, to tell lesser beings exactly how they should think, act and live, and how to spend whatever pittance of their salaries the elite allow them to keep.  The ability, by force of law, to declare biology old-fashioned/phobic, is merely a facet of that kind of tyranny.

To make things clear:

A trans woman is a person who was born male (with XY chromosomes) and identifies as female. They’re often described as MTF or male-to-female athletes.

A trans man is a person who was born female (with XX chromosomes) and identifies as male. They’re often referred to as FTM or female-to-male athletes.

Yes.

Most people don’t care how anyone else identifies. If you’re trans, most people want you to live your life however you see fit, just as long as it doesn’t hurt them.

But that’s the crux of the situation. If a biological woman invests a lot of time preparing for a competition, and then the playing field becomes significantly un-leveled, it does hurt her.

It hurts her chances of getting a scholarship, earning a title she worked for, turning pro, making it to the Olympics, winning a cash prize, setting a prestigious record, or in certain cases, it may irreparably damage her body, depending on the sport.

Granted, this is not an easy situation… especially if you’re the head of a sports federation. If you don’t comply with trans-activism, you run the risk of getting sued and being smeared all over the media as a bigoted organization. Your image will suffer.

But if people who are born male, and who’ve spent their formative teen years as a male with no intervention, are allowed to compete against women, then ultimately it’ll be a no-win situation for biological female athletes.

We are, tragically, seeing just that. 

Some people like to say that there’s a level playing field between biological women and trans women because, depending on their sporting federation, trans women must suppress their testosterone production for a period of time – usually a year.

Shugart explains the biological issues relating to testosterone production in some detail, but the point is simple:

So, trans women’s T-levels are still astonishingly higher than what any biological woman would be able to achieve without the assistance of exogenous hormones. Of course, if you test a woman who’s been juicing, her T-levels will be much higher than the average range for females. But most athletic federations still ban steroid use, which begs the next question…

Would a female athlete be tempted to use steroids if she knew her competitors had biological male advantages?

Of course she would, particularly at the higher levels of sports where winning has significant benefits beyond self-satisfaction and fitness.

But let’s just pretend that trans women were required to sufficiently lower their levels to that of an average biological women. The next thing we’d have to acknowledge is that the amount of testosterone they previously produced will have had a huge impact on their anatomy and physiology.

Dr. Antonia Lee, an elite coach with degrees in science and sports medicine, recently wrote:

‘Testosterone during growth, puberty and maturation results in quite remarkable differences between the sexes. Testosterone in males at puberty drives: an increase in bone size and density; an increase in muscle size and strength; an increase in the tensile strength of ligaments and connective tissue; an increase in red blood cells… the list is extensive.’

She goes on to say that, ‘The fastest female sprinter in the world is easily beaten by male club athletes (3).’

This is heresy to those that claim there are no differences between men and women, but again, it reflects reality.  Male skeletal structure—basic biomechanics—also produces insurmountable performance advantages.  We speak, of course, of sports involving maximum muscular and endurance characteristics. This is why women do not box men, nor do they compete against men in other martial arts.  The outcome is preordained.  Virtually all women need not bother to enter the ring.  Women beating men in material arts movies do not reflect reality.  It’s not fighting, but fight choreography.

Male bodies – no matter how much testosterone is currently in them – have an obvious physiological advantage. And to deny this fact is delusional. Researching the differences between men and women will tell you this, but all you really have to do is open your eyes. Or just ask the teenage girls who are getting smoked by their biological male opponents.

Shugart makes other pertinent points:

Or how about the simple fact that if you’re born male, you don’t have periods? Trans women will never know how excruciating it can be when your uterus is shedding its lining during practice or competition day.

And nobody talks about how women’s testosterone (what little we DO make) naturally fluctuates, so when we’re producing our highest amount we don’t get to keep it for long. The monthly peak is much shorter than its surrounding valleys. We don’t get to just maintain it at 10 nmol/L. If we did do that, that would be cheating, according to the rules.

The male-born will likely never experience the iron deficiencies related to the combination of hard training and heavy menstrual flow. Nor will they ever have to worry about the female athletic triad, a condition that occurs when a woman’s activity level drives her hormones down to a point at which she stops having a period and, as a result, her bone mineral density decreases (common in endurance athletes) (6).

None of these differences between biological males and females are mentioned in the articles praising trans competitors as ‘groundbreaking,’ ‘brave,’ or ‘heroic.’

Of course they aren’t.  There is no bravery or heroism in beating people that don’t have a chance to win.  Where is the supposed Republican “war on women,” of just a short time ago now that it is conservatives that are trying to preserve fairness—equity, if you will–in women’s competition?

Another argument people make on behalf of transgender athletes is that sports are just a game, and there’s no need to want a level playing field because athletic competition is ultimately for funsies. People usually say these things in relation to high school athletics.

It’s a sexist sentiment. Nobody’s telling boys on the football team to take their sport less seriously, yet here they are telling young women,

‘How dare you want to win; athletics are just for fun, so shut up and compete with people you don’t stand a chance against.’

If sports are only for fun, shall we just stop keeping score? And shall we eliminate all rules that keep people from competing outside of ANY biological class? If their chosen identity is what determines their division – instead of objective biological markers – then common sense divisions will eventually cease to exit.

They already have.  In my classes, I ask the kids to identify Texas state symbols, things voted on by the state legislature.  Did you know Texas has a state stone?  Petrified Palmwood.  A state vehicle?  The chuckwagon.  When I ask them for the state sport, they all say “football!”  I point out that’s our religion.  The right answer is “rodeo.”

The point, gentle readers, in Texas and elsewhere, is no one in their right mind would dare to suggest boy’s sports are mere games.  Anyone so foolish would be deluged with the usual arguments that sports are a metaphor for life, absolutely essential opportunities to build character, teamwork, integrity, etc..  While sports can have positive benefits beyond fitness, arguing they’re only games so girls should just shut up is hypocritical deception.

And if a 51-year old 6’8″ man wanted to identify as a women’s college basketball athlete, he’d be able to join their team and help these young ladies clobber their competitors. Absurd, right? You probably think it’d never get to that point.

But it did. That’s exactly what happened at San Joaquin Delta College in Northern California (7). The slope has been slipped.

This is particularly disgusting:

Maybe some sadists enjoyed watching the trans MMA fighter knock out a woman, but it didn’t sit well with a lot of people. And in individual sports like that, where women could be seriously hurt, the judges might as well preemptively hand the first place prize to the trans athlete, and then have the biological women battle it out to see who comes in second.

People are injured while participating in sports every day, but allowing men to fight women is the height of cruelty and misogyny.  But aren’t women supposed to take care of themselves?  OK.  Let’s do away with rape laws, which mostly protect women, who can fend for themselves, right.  Let’s let 90-pound women box in the men’s heavyweight division. Men and women are different.  If men do not protect women, the species is in danger.

I’d hate to be in charge of any sports federation right now. To be ‘fair’ to a very small group (0.6% of the population), a much larger group (50.8% of the population) must have their chances of winning greatly diminished.

Trans activism has put federations in this position. Because if they do the right thing, their federation will be smeared, protested, labeled discriminatory, or get sued.

Shugart outlines the hair-splitting, pseudo-scientific policies of various international and professional organizations, forced on women to accommodate the .6% (other studies indicate it’s only .3%).  More to the point for most women, though, are state accommodations.  Far more girls will participate in high school, and to a lesser degree, college, sports than in professional sports.

*In 17 states, like Connecticut, transgender teens are allowed to compete as their chosen gender. This is true even if they’ve gone through puberty as biological males. There are no regulations requiring them to suppress their testosterone or have surgery. A male can declare he’s female and immediately proceed to crush the girls in competition.

And so they have.

*In 17 other states, schools are allowed to set their own policies. This means modification may be required, or trans athletes may be allowed to compete as their affirmed gender on a case-by-case basis.

*In 9 states, male-born athletes are not allowed to compete with biological females.

*The remaining states have no policy yet (12).

As anyone that has been paying attention knows, these policies have forced girls to refuse to participate in competitions for which they have trained all their lives.  Where’s the fairness in that?  Shugart concludes:

This issue is NOT about whether you love or hate trans people; it’s about the death of women’s sports.

Nobody is saying trans people should not compete. The more people involved in sports the better, but the clear solution is separate divisions. Division in sports is not discriminatory; it never has been. Most sports already have divisions including sex, weight, and age.

In all my running years—I bicycle (OK, tricycle ) these days—every race in which I participated had men’s and women’s medal divisions, further broken down by age.  No one expected 70 year-old women to participate on the same level as 18 year-old women, and certainly not against men of any age.  The same is true today in virtually all legitimate speed and endurance sports.

If biological women get fed up and stop participating, then trans athletes might just be competing amongst themselves anyway.

I know what’s coming though. If you’re a person who’s blinded by social justice and political correctness, you’re going to see my position as anti-trans. But if that’s the only conclusion you come to, maybe you need to examine your anti-female ideology. [skip]

Trans women competing against biological women poses a problem. And the implications of it are huge. If more and more adult male athletes transition into females, there won’t be any reason for young ladies to practice, or even dream about their future in sports anymore.

If they dare question what’s going on, they’ll be bullied by the pandering mainstream media and labeled transphobes. They may even be punished for their opinions.

They’ll lose before they even get the chance to play.

They’ll lose because the winners are cheaters, and the sports sanctioning bodies are not only helping them cheat, they’re applauding their collective virtue for doing it.   But hey, all’s fair in war, right?

By all means, take the link and read Shugart’s entire article.  It lays out the issues, and the hypocrisy, very well.

We are, circa 2019, deciding what kind of society we want to live in.  It is not enough for Leftists, particularly the tiny LGBTQWERTY faction, to be left alone to do as they please.  Few, if any, Americans have no problem with that.  They demand, instead, to infringe on the rights of others, and more, to be praised in thought, word and deed for their superior,, enlightened morality.  Should Democrats/Socialists/Communists win the White House, the actual war on women will continue and expand.  Among the destructive victories won will be the abolition of women’s sports, if not in law, certainly in reality.

For additional, insightful information, visit this article by my pal Bookworm.  If you’re not reading her on a daily basis, you ought to be.  Also visit this classic take on the issue by The Babylon Bee.  Some people simply must be mocked.