When facts and ideology collide, facts generally do not stand a chance.
Men claiming to be women are winning more sporting events as well as taking positions (modeling, for example) and awards (woman of the Year) previously reserved for women. The argument that “trans men” have no advantage over women in sports seems specious and ignores decades of data showing men being faster and more robust than women across sporting events. It’s evident that reduced testosterone levels required of guys claiming to be women do not remove the advantages of build, musculature, heart performance, and strength. Fifty years of gains made by women since Title IX’s passing are being wiped out by mediocre males seeing the hardware awaiting them in the women’s competitions.
While all sports are separated into male and female categories, there are some sports that further segregate according to weight. Rowing has heavyweight and lightweight divisions for both men and women. Boxing, famously, has different weight classes. The standard rowing race is 2,000 meters, and the fastest boats are the eights (eight rowers and one coxswain). The heavyweight and lightweight world records are both owned by German crews, but the time difference between the two is 12 seconds. At their speeds, 12 seconds is about 77 meters. Picture the heavyweights getting into the endzone while the lightweights are still on their own fifteen-yard line. Such a huge difference in world records is based solely on mass, with lightweights having to weigh under 160 pounds for men and 130 pounds for women. Much larger and heavier rowers in the heavyweight bracket simply have much more power to put on the oar and can move the boat that much more quickly. Rowing recognized these differences early and has maintained the weight divisions for decades for both men and women. If there was only one “open” class for rowing, a lot of lightweight rowers would not have a chance to compete in the sport. If the sport were unisex, one would probably never see a competitive woman rower. The fastest women’s eight is another 22 seconds behind the men’s lightweight world record.
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Boxing gave us greats like Sugar Ray Leonard, who fought from welterweight up to light heavyweight. If he had been required to fight heavyweights from the beginning of his career, we might never have heard of him. Seventeen weight divisions in boxing and twelve UFC weight classes shed light on the undeniable relationship between size/weight and power. When looking at the official boxing classes, there may be only 5 to 8 pounds between adjacent classes. One might wonder how much difference can there possibly be between a 112-pound flyweight and a 115-pound super flyweight or between a 135-pound lightweight and a 140-pound super lightweight. Still, the folks who run boxing know that even just a few pounds can make a significant difference in punching strength. The need for so many boxing and UFC divisions gives the lie to the idea that a man with all of his physical advantages intact except for his testosterone levels is no different than the women he is about to throttle in the pool, on a bike, or while lifting weights.
The problem faced today is that a large number of people cannot be bothered by facts. When one is in the thralls of an ideology, pesky facts become irrelevant. If facts were used to continue to separate the sexes in sports competitions, then the idea of letting each person shout out his/her/its gender would have to be put aside. Not letting guys claim to be women and clobber biological women in sports would be to deny that people can change their gender at will based on a feeling. The concept of a gender-separate from sex is a construct used to get around the inconvenient fact that there are genetically XX women and XY men, and very few that does not fit into those categories. Thus was born the concept of “gender fluidity”, a concept disconnected from actual biological sex. And thus, one could choose, or one’s parents could choose that Bobby was going to become Bonnie or Judy would become Johnny. Ignoring all of the biological plumbing and the unknown risks of puberty blockers and unnecessary surgeries is part of the ideology of gender—you think that your body does not represent who you believe that you are, so, we’ll help make the changes to suit your feelings. If sports stood on its back heels and said guys, stay on your side of the sports class, they would deny a fundamental concept of the Left, namely that gender has nothing to do with biological sex or the way that G-d made us. A few sports leagues or umbrella organizations have made the conditions for males joining women onerous, but many of the high-profile governing bodies have actively welcomed their new male competitors. In the 1980s, if a guy showed up to a women’s competition, they would have thrown him out in a second; today, he is untouchable and anyone who complains that he is stronger, faster, bigger, and tougher will be considered a bigot and probably face a ban from the sport, as the women from the University of Pennsylvania swimming team found out when Lia Thomas was on their team. They were prohibited from discussing him.
So what will be the future of women’s sports? One would hope that the governing bodies and relevant government officials would stand up for women and demand that only biological women be allowed to compete in women’s sports. That’s how it has been for the past fifty years, and the explosive growth of women’s golf, soccer, tennis, basketball and other sports supports the success of Title IX and the separation of the sexes in sporting events. As Kurt Schlichter has previously written on this website, the job of keeping guys out of women’s spaces is ultimately up to women. Men can support keeping men out of women’s sporting events, but only women can fight to keep a future for their daughters in having a shot at winning in sports. Women can demand of any politician running for office that he or she commits to passing laws keeping men out of women's sports. Competitive women can threaten to set up their own leagues (like LIV golf did to the PGA for financial reasons) if the governing bodies do not support them unreservedly. The time to fight this disturbing trend is now while it is still relatively new; if the fight is not made, in a few short years, we may never see a biological woman win another competition in a women’s sporting event, from high school level all the way up to the Olympics.
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