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It’s now clear: men are better than women at everything, including being women.  We are assured men are “birthing persons,” apparently fully capable of giving birth, which must mean they have all the reproductive organs of women, including vaginas.  I’m not sure where these “birthing persons” put all that stuff, but they’re also capable of “chest feeding”—all the smart people say so—so it must be in there somewhere.

But nowhere is male superiority more obvious than in women’s—er, men’s, er, trans, er, something’s—sports.  And the coaches involved are so very, very proud of their role in an epic fraud.

“Lia” Thomas, hereinafter referred to by his actual name—Will, because he’s a guy, like Jake from State Farm—was, for three years, a second team swimmer at Penn.  “Second team” means junior varsity, not ready for prime time, no chance at the medal stand, no name in any record book anywhere, no fame, no fortune, just one of thousands of collegiate athletes who may or may not have a small athletic scholarship, and who have no chance at a professional sports career.  They do it because they enjoy their sport, and the travel and competition opportunities it affords, or simply because they’ve always been an athlete, it’s what they do, it’s their identity.

Imagine, gentle readers, you’re one of those thousands, and you’re not satisfied.  You see the stars, the winners, the people whose names will be in the records books—at least for a few years—people whose names everybody knows, people who get their pictures in media, people with full ride scholarships, a guaranteed college degree with or without any academic effort.  It’s just not fair, damn it!  Why should they get to win just because they had that one in a million chance genetic endowment that allows them to be stronger and faster than everybody else?  No matter how hard you work, how long you train, you’re never going to be that strong or fast.  Nature has conspired against you, and it’s just not fair!

Once upon a time, within memory, you’d be stuck.  You’d have no chance for fame and public adulation.  No one was ever going to praise you for your superior morality and epic bravery, because you were neither moral nor brave, just another also-ran athlete with no way to be more–ever.  It was not all about you and never would be.  You were stuck living up to the expectations, the reality, of others rather than forcing them to live up to your expectations and reality.

And then, miracle of miracles, the world turned upside down.  Suddenly, confused, even mentally ill individuals no longer had to suffer in silence, doomed to be nothing special, forever just another face in the athletic crowd.  Suddenly, there was a way, a way that didn’t require ability or hard work—nothing more than one already had or did—to vault to the medal stand, to win and set records, and get scholarships, and to be praised for saint-like morality and stunning bravery, to be admired, and better yet, to be immune from criticism.  It wouldn’t be necessary to lift a finger to explain or defend.  The media, the entertainment world, politicians, University administrators, faculty, coaches, everybody that mattered would absolutely, self-righteously, defend your honor—never mind you didn’t have any of that—and punish anyone foolish enough to resent your brilliance—like the teammates you suddenly gained the ability to easily beat.

All you had to do was pretend to be female!

Unfortunately, that only works if you’re male to begin with.  There’s no advantage to being female and pretending to be male.  Everybody knows men are bigger, stronger and faster than women.  A quick glance at the record books makes that more than clear.  It just is.  It’s reality–real reality.

College coaches know it too.  They want, above all, to win.  Winning means job security, more money, maybe even a transfer to a bigger school and even more money and more job security, and maybe even fame and fortune beyond coaching.  Oh sure, they talk about hard work, and honor and integrity, and all that locker room speech nonsense, but what really matters is winning, and they’re going to ride the trans wave to fame and fortune, because even one guy pretending to be a girl can turn their team into a winner, and winning is all that counts.  Too bad, so sad about the actual girls who have worked so hard, given up so much for so long to make it to the big leagues of college sports, but that’s just the way it is in 2021.  Compared with that, what do their feelings, their futures, matter?  They’re just girls, not make believe girls, and circa 2021, nothing matters more than the feelings of a tiny handful of make believe girls.  There’s no political advantage in supporting actual women.  Who knows if that will ever change?

Once upon a time, pretending to be female to gain an advantage in sports would have been called “cheating,” but that’s so yesterday, so transphobic and “normal” and Flyover Country. Once upon a time, no one would have bought that. They would have seen it as not only cheating, but fundamentally unfair, even absurd.  Once upon a time, people, even coaches, would have held the welfare of their female athletes as their highest priority.  No more.

One of Penn’s women’s team swimmers, a biological woman, said that having [Will] Thomas swim for the women’s team is ‘the wrong thing to do.’

‘Pretty much everyone individually has spoken to our coaches about not liking this. Our coach [Mike Schnur] just really likes winning. He’s like most coaches. I think secretly, everyone just knows it’s the wrong thing to do,’ the Penn swimmer told Outkick. ‘When the whole team is together, we have to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, go Lia. That’s great. You’re amazing.’ It’s very fake.’

Why do they have to pretend?  Because they know if they complain, if they identify themselves, if they proclaim to all the world: “this guy is a guy, and he’s cheating” they’ll be attacked, and not just verbally.  They’ll lose their scholarships, be ejected from the team, be hounded by “activists” everywhere, perhaps even expelled from their college. Just being female is no longer good enough, in fact, it’s inconvenient, even annoying.  Men pretending to be female are now authentic females, and the entire college system is going to fuel their delusions:

Thomas personally believes the team and coaches at Penn have been very supportive of the athlete’s transition.

‘The team has been unbelievably supportive since the beginning,’ Thomas said . ‘Mike has been one of my biggest supporters and allies in this process since day one, and I’m very grateful to have that support from him and from everybody on the team I feel … treated like any other member of the women’s team.’

I’m sure “Mike” has.  But not everyone:

However, a second person on Thomas’s team said most team members are ‘angry’ over the ‘unfair situation.’

‘They feel so discouraged because no matter how much work they put in it, they’re going to lose,’ she said. ‘Usually, they can get behind the blocks and know they out-trained all their competitors, and they’re going to win and give it all they’ve got.’

‘Now, they’re having to go behind the blocks knowing no matter what, they do not have the chance to win,’ the swimmer continued. ‘I think that it’s really getting to everyone.’

Of course it is.  They’re sane. They don’t have to pretend to be what they’re not.  They’re actual women, and that’s just not good enough anymore.

Let us, gentle readers, for the sake of argument, accept there are some men who truly believe, or think, they’re female.  Call it a genetic error, cultural conditioning, mental illness, Climate Change (there’s nothing it can’t do), whatever.  Is the rest of the world obligated to accommodate them?  When did that start?

Assume further such a person happens to be an athlete, and as such, even if their assumption of a female identity is sincere, if delusional, and might be accompanied by hormone therapy, even surgery to remove male parts replacing them with female parts, instantly confers an overwhelming advantage over women, vaulting him—yes him, from birth to death–to the top of whatever sport he wishes to play.  Is the rest of the world obligated to accommodate them?  When did that start?

Finally, let us assume there are dishonorable male athletes who are more than willing to get in on the scam.  All they have to do, for a few years, is pretend to be female, and unstinting praise, fame and fortune are theirs.  Better yet, they’re don’t have to defend themselves.  They’ll have legions of coaches, reporters, politicians, university administrators, diversity and inclusion assistants to the assistant to the assistant dean for diversity and inclusion defending them and viciously attacking anyone who even looks like they might be thinking about complaining.

Take your choice, why should any of those people be able to make a mockery of women’s sports?  But that’s not what Will Thomas is doing!  He’s the real thing!  Really?

Thomas’s teammate also said that the transgender athlete has bragged about the newfound success and Thomas’s reported No. 1 rank in the country for female swimmers.

‘That was so easy. I was cruising,’ Thomas allegedly said after one race

Thomas’s teammate argued that the self-praise was unwarranted.

‘Well, obviously, she’s No. 1 in the country because she’s at a clear physical advantage after having gone through male puberty and getting to train with testosterone for years,’ the swimmer said, according to Outkick. ‘Of course you’re No. 1 in the country when you’re beating a bunch of females. That’s not something to brag about.’

Not too long ago, there would have been nothing to brag about, because no male would have been allowed to compete against females because it’s unfair and just plain wrong.  Did Thomas actually say that?  If so, it makes his motivation more than clear, and there is nothing honorable about it. I’ve not been able to find any statement from Thomas—or anyone else–denying it, which does not, by itself, make it true, but this isn’t a criminal trial, and we’re allowed—for the moment—to make up our minds about such things based on common sense.

Thomas’s placement on the team and recognition as a ‘female swimmer’ is a ‘slap in the face that the NCAA doesn’t care about the integrity of women’s sports,’ the female student-athlete said.

Yes.  Yes it is.

The criticism and comments from Thomas’s teammates come after team officials reportedly ‘strongly advised’ members of the women’s swimming team to stay silent about Thomas while speaking to the media.

Of course.  Shut up you stupid little girls.  This is about winning and diversity and inclusion.  If you don’t shut up, you know what’s going to happen to you, you transphobes!

Thomas said  the transition from man to woman has not affected the athlete’s performance in the pool and said that comparing everything to pre-transition times is not accurate ‘to my current ability.’

The transition has resulted in a significant amount of muscle and strength loss, Thomas said.

‘The process of coming out as being trans and continuing to swim was a lot of uncertainty and unknown around an area that’s usually really solid,’ Thomas said. ‘Being trans has not affected my ability to do this sport, and being able to continue is very rewarding.’

Right.  His ability has not been affected, which is the point: men beat women.  All he needed to do was pretend to be female; his abilities didn’t need to be “affected.” Fake women beat women.  But that’s not all Thomas has to say:

In an interview last week with SwimSwam, Thomas praised the changes coming over the world of sports – such as the rules changes by the International Olympics Committee- allowing men claiming to be transgender women to enter into the regular women’s categories.

‘I think the guidelines they set forward are very good and do a very good job of promoting inclusivity while keeping competitional integrity going,’ Thomas said.

Such is the logic of such things.  The integrity of women’s sports is upheld by destroying the integrity of women’s sports, and few have the courage to speak the truth.  Fortunately, not everyone is intimidated:

Parents of the University of Pennsylvania women’s swim team are demanding the NCAA change rules that have permitted transgender swimmer Lia Thomas to dominate the competition, declaring ‘at stake here is the integrity of women’s sports,’ DailyMail.com has learned.

The parents of about 10 swimmers sent a letter last week to the NCAA and forwarded it to the Ivy League and University of Pennsylvania officials.

‘At stake here is the integrity of women’s sports,’ they wrote in the letter obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com. ‘The precedent being set – one in which women do not have a protected and equitable space to compete – is a direct threat to female athletes in every sport. What are the boundaries? How is this in line with the NCAA’s commitment to providing a fair environment for student-athletes?

It is the responsibility of the NCAA to address the matter with an official statement,’ the parents continue. ‘As the governing body, it is unfair and irresponsible to leave the onus on Lia, Lia’s teammates, Lia’s coaches, UPenn athletics and the Ivy League. And it is unfair and irresponsible to Lia to allow the media to dictate the narrative without the participation of the NCAA.’

The NCAA has yet to respond to the letter, sent December 5.

What a surprise.  But how about the University?

The university sent a terse response to the parents, claiming the school is doing what it can to help the student-athletes navigate Lia’s success, shared a link to mental health services.

‘Please know that we fully support all our swimming student-athletes and want to help our community navigate Lia’s success in the pool this winter,’ the university replied. ‘Penn Athletics is committed to being a welcoming and inclusive environment for all our student-athletes, coaches and staff and we hold true to that commitment today and in the future.

‘We’ve encouraged our student-athletes to utilize the robust resources available to them at Penn, and I’d like to share them with you as well,’ the school wrote the parents, providing links to ‘counseling and psychological services, the LGBT Center, Restorative Practices and our Center for Student-Athlete Success staff.’

Of course, the morality bereft functionaries running the University have it backward.  It is not the actual female athletes that need “mental health services.”  They are, unsurprisingly, dodging the issue.  Outkick founder Clay Travis, who noted he’s unaware of anyone actually supporting the NCAA’s policy—as am I—has an interesting take:

‘What you have seen here, ironically, you know, Outkick broke the story of two different women swimmers on Penn who spoke out about how ridiculous this was. Now, you’ve got the parents speaking out. They’re all doing so anonymously,’ Travis outlined. ‘But what is interesting, Dana, the most to me is no one is actually defending this policy in the world of sports in an explicit way — not that I’ve seen, anyway. What they are trying to do is pretend this story doesn’t exist at all, and I think that reflects the fact that this is not something that is controversial to most people in America. I would bet 90 or 95% of people in America believe men should compete against men and women should compete against women, and so if you are in this position now what you are seeing is all these people, Dana, think about this, all the people who said it is great that Colin Kaepernick is speaking out, oh, we need more players and coaches and athletes to use sports as a window to speak out on cultural issues — where are all those people?’

He continued, ‘Where are the Megan Rapinoes of the world that were attacking Donald Trump every single time you put a microphone anywhere near them — the most popular and successful female athletes in the world. Do these women recognize if men decide to identify as women and start playing soccer, they won’t exist? They won’t be as good because they’re not as big, strong and fast as biological men. And so this is an existential threat against women athletics, Dana [Perino]. And the feminists, the Title IX supporters, almost no one is willing to engage in a legitimate discussion about this monumental threat to women athletics, to Title IX and to the equality of sexes.’

Indeed.  Where are the female athletes, or will they wait until men playing at being female have overpowered their sport, every female sport?  Or even then, will they be too intimidated?

Final Thoughts:  The solution is simple: no men, laden with hormones, with or without penises, with or without sex reassignment surgery, in “transition,” or merely stuck in one of the only two actual genders or not, get to participate in women’s sports.  No other option is fair; no other option is moral; no other option is sane.  Any other option makes a mockery of the very foundations of sports.

If all of the K-12, college and international and Olympic sports governing bodies want to establish a trans league, there is nothing stopping them.  Except reality, the reality there are very few trans athletes, and virtually no one would watch those events and there would be no money to be made.  Who is going to shell out salaries and benefits for coaches and support staff?  No one would become famous and there is certainly no political power to be exercised over people afraid to resist.

How about preventing females pretending to be male from competing in men’s sports?  Riiiight.