WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN SPORTS
Why It Matters
I grew up in the heyday of the Women’s Rights Movement. The first birth control pill was invented when I was a youngster, so I entered my teens with this unusual freedom; almost complete control of pregnancy. Women won the right to career success in every area, the ability to sign legally-binding contracts, the right to their own credit rating and so much more. While I personally experienced some discrimination, mostly because of the career areas I chose (science and IT), it never hindered me. I didn’t know a time when I, a woman, would be considered second class.
The Trans Movement
While I know that a small number of people really find themselves in the wrong body, for the most part, this recent spate of conversions has more to do with the tendency of teens to “follow the leader.” There have been pregnancy and suicide pacts and other ways of conforming, as teens seek to find their identity. Part of the proof of this is simply that, as with all these other copycat activities, more women than men are persuaded to pursue a different identity.
Aside from the proven damage surgery and transition medications cause, when did the bounds of what sex a person was become so confining? As a child, I had friends who were tomboys and who preferred to hang with the boys. I thrilled in my brief spate of athletic excellence in track and swimming (mostly a memory by the time I was a teen). Some kids played with dolls; I couldn’t figure out what to do with a babydoll. But at no time did I consider that perhaps I was really meant to be a boy.
As we now can see, hard-won rights, such as the right to have a powerful and, in some cases, financially rewarding athletic career, is vanishing for women. The battles were long and hard to get the recognition and prizes men had long enjoyed. But now, men can call themselves women, no matter what they have or haven’t done to their bodies, and find themselves at the top of the podium. Yet, the protests and anger are in short supply. Only the female athletes are protesting and no one seems to care.
Studies prove that if you get through puberty, the effects of heredity and sex hormones give men a distinct advantage. Just look at Lea Thomas. She towers over her/his female competitors, with the same kind of strong shoulders we remember from Michael Phelps. There’s a reason we have male and female sports. Strength matters and men, courtesy of testosterone and more, have more strength. While a few people have considered that at some time in the future, men and women can compete equally in punishing events like the marathon, for most events, putting them together guarantees the male the edge.
Fairness Matters
I trained for a few years to be a competitive swimmer. While I had no such ambitions, I know my father longed for me to be a state champion and my mother thought a sports scholarship would help me choose a more expensive college than our family could afford.
Men are stripping women of their medals, their money and the benefits of athletic scholarships. Even when women were only grudgingly given rights, the right to compete with similar physiologies was paramount. I do remember some East German “women” who were tested and thrown out of the Olympics in the ‘60’s for being men. It only made sense. If you have XY sex chromosomes instead of XX, you are a man. It was pretty clearcut.
Has anyone considered that some boys/men who can’t compete well with others of their sex may be gaming the system? Think about the advantages. Now, they can achieve their athletic dreams, get scholarships, win trophies and even, potentially, see financial rewards as a pro. Time will tell. We’ll only know when they “de-transition” after netting the advantages of pretending to be women.
Men cannot really be women; biology dictates this. No matter the surgery or chemicals, these people will never bear children. They won’t nurse. And, most likely, they will never be as comfortable as they may like with other women. Our brains are wired in our biology.
We all were born with certain natural talents and abilities, but biologically, you cannot consider a man who changes sex, (whatever that means), to be fully a woman. It simply isn’t fair to women. And consider this: even if you are fully engaged with the idea of femininity, don’t you have to tell any potential partner the truth? I know that as a relationship developed, I felt it important to let my partners know I couldn’t have children; I’m basically sterile.
We were also born with handicaps of various kinds which limit our choices in life. A blind man cannot become a pilot. Even those who challenge those limits have to work very hard to do so, and even then, may face some discrimination. A man who lived in our neighborhood in IL was born blind and became a lawyer. Consider that they didn’t have Braille law books. He knew it wouldn’t be easy, but he persevered. There are some things that each of us will never do. (I never got to realize my ambition of singing in a rock band). And some things we will only accomplish with extreme effort. But we also can’t change the rules to disadvantage everyone else. That’s what the trans movement is focused on. If you tell a man who has transitioned that he can’t compete in women’s sports, you’ll be called a bigot.
Instead, let’s call it what it is. Those haters, despite thinking of themselves as women, hate real women. If they didn’t, they would understand and accept their physiological advantages and not compete with them.
What other rights will women cede to support this overwrought movement? And if we ensure they keep the rights they should have, how fast will we see de-transitioning? Only time will tell.
That is the core problem. Remember the father of the child in VA who was molested by a so-called woman. The molester was sent to another school (with no notice to them of the problem), but the father was treated as a terrorist when he protested the lack of consequences at a school board meeting. He wasn't violent; he simply spoke loudly over their objections about what was happening. This is sending women back to the dark ages. In prison, they are being raped regularly because they are forced to co-habit with "men."
Not only is there likely gaming of the system going on, but I’d add that this current feigned openness is encouraging predators into women’s heretofore personal spaces. Frankly, I’m surprised I haven’t seen more vigilante groups of fathers protecting their daughters. Although, in the current social and political environment, I know that would not fare well for the dads.