Welcome new readers! Much more about this topic here.
Time for an update. There’s always something going on in this area, but today’s highlights might be particularly helpful in making the nonsense clear..as nonsense.
First, let’s return to Lia Thomas, male member of the UPenn women’s swim team.
(Reminder: I heed Kara Dansky’s plea to stop using The Pronouns and even the terms “transwoman,” “transmen” and the like. There are men and women, males and females, hes and shes. That’s it. There may be men who identify as women or women or think of themselves as men, but they are still men, still women. Also, if you haven’t seen it, this. Succinct.)
I first wrote about this a couple of weeks ago.
In case you are behind, Lia Thomas competed on the UPenn men’s swim team for three years, took a break (partly Covid-related I assume, like everyone else), “transitioned” – whatever that mean. Apparently, in this case, Thomas has been suppressing testosterone and taking female hormones. I think that’s it – that’s all that’s public, anyway.
And then he was allowed to join the women’s team, where, of course, he’s been smoking the competition.
Amid the usual headpats and expression of allyship, news of discord is beginning to trickle out. Anonymous teammates have been quoted. Parents have written letters.
And now, an official has quit in protest.
Cynthia Millen, who had officiated USA Swimming meets for three decades, stepped down ahead of the U.S. Paralympics Swimming National Championships in Greensboro, North Carolina, earlier this month.
She argued that Thomas, 22, has an unfair advantage over female athletes after coming out as transgender in 2019 following three years on the men’s team at Penn.
“The fact is that swimming is a sport in which bodies compete against bodies. Identities do not compete against identities,” Millen said Monday on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” “Men are different from women, men swimmers are different from women, and they will always be faster than women.”
Thomas has smashed several Penn records this season — with one teammate finishing in second place in the 1,650-meter freestyle some 38 second behind her.
Good for her.
If the governing organizations are going to permit it, this isn’t going stop until competitors and officials take a stand – a stand that will require sacrifice. Thomas’ teammates considered boycotting, but refrained from an understandable fear of reprisal.
A few swimmers have come out with statements – for example Olympic medalist Erica Brown, here.
A Hall of Fame swimming coach:
“I don’t think it’s fair at all,” Salo told The Washington Times. “I think it really compromises the gains that have been made in women’s sports for the last 30 years. It’s going backwards. I think the NCAA and IOC have not really looked at the policy that directs this question.”
Also weighing in was Jeri Shanteau, an 11-time All-American swimmer who won three NCAA women’s championships in the mid-2000s at Auburn.
“There is an injustice being done right now for women competing in sports, specifically and clearly swimming,” Shanteau told The Washington Times.
She and Salo joined a small but growing chorus of swimming and sports insiders sounding the alarm as Thomas breaks records on the women’s side after three years on the Penn men’s team as Will Thomas, fueling a national debate over fairness and inclusion in female sports.
“It is very concerning as a former female athlete to watch people who have the ability to protect women’s sports and fairness and safety stand by and do nothing,” Shanteau said. “It is negligent.”
Salo said his female swimmers were unable to replicate the results of their male counterparts, no matter how hard they trained.
“I know how hard the women have worked. They’ve worked on par with men in terms of their effort, but they can never match what the men could do in the weight room or in the pool,” he said.
Penn’s next meet is January 8 against Dartmouth.
This can’t be brushed off, and it shines almost the brightest light possible on this issue.
Why should Lia Thomas, a biological male, be allowed to take a woman’s place on a women’s team and take victories and set records that no actual woman can hope to achieve?
Why?
Explain why a man who takes some hormones should get to be considered a woman. Even if he’d had his penis and testicles amputated – why should he be considered a woman?
Let’s move on to Jeopardy! Haven’t watched it in years (although I occasionally remember to check when it’s time to take the online qualifying test, and have done so a couple of times), but perhaps you know, and perhaps you’ve seen the headline:
‘Jeopardy!’ champ Amy Schneider becomes show’s top female earner
“Female.”
Right.
I don’t care how much Schneider wins or if you want to call him the first trans champ. Whatever.
Do not call him female.
Do not celebrate him as a female.
Stop. Just. Stop.
Because it has to stop.
You want cultural appropriation?
I’d say this is just about the definition of it.
Look. I’m a 61-year old female of WASP and French-Canadian extraction. We make jokes about such things, but what would you say if I ended this blog post by announcing that I’m now a Filipino guy? You’d send me references to a therapist is what you’d do.
What’s the difference?
Mental and emotional pain? Turmoil? Dysphoria? Deep dysphoria?
Sorry. Pain is real, mental and emotional anguish is real. But so is identity.
An anorexic looks in the mirror and sincerely believes her 85-pound self is fat. A chronically depressed person sincerely believes that he has no worth and doesn’t deserve to live any longer.
Do we affirm those perceptions?
No.
And this is no different.
Sorry – no different.
If you disagree, then explain it to the UPenn biologically female swimmers. Please.
Go ahead.
Have at it.
More from me on this issue here.
I have another post coming tomorrow as well.
You might be interested in this interview, posted today, on a British channel, with Kelli-Jay Keen, aka Posie Parker.
The male interviewer is an idiot and exposes the vacuousness of that position: Of course your 15-year old daughter should be comfortable with Men with True and Real Lady-Brains in the store changing room. Bigot!
Parker writes about the interview here.
Unfortunately, as I tried to point out, we have yet to be able to tell which men are the bad ones — and until we do, we must ensure the best possible safeguarding for women by keeping all of them out. Men who do not wish to harm women, or cause us any discomfort, are okay with staying out of our spaces.
For making that point, Max called me hateful, disturbing and unpleasant for refusing to buckle to his whim that men can become women. I am not any of those things, but I am also not afraid of these tactics to bully me into surrendering the rights women before me fought for. I am not fearful for any legal repercussions either. I am fearful for women across the country who can no longer guarantee a female-only rape crisis centre, a female-only domestic violence shelter, for the girls in schools losing their right to female-only changing rooms and toilets, who are threatened with accusations of unkindness for feeling uncomfortable. I am fearful of the great untruth being fed to us through our media, government and institutions.
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