Perhaps the Lia Thomas splash will be a turning point in the public perception of transgender athletes
Perhaps the Lia Thomas splash will be a turning point in the public perception of transgender athletes
The "follow the science" media have been lying all along about basic endocrinology, but these fact-hiding expeditions may finally be encountering real obstacles
A University of Pennsylvania swimmer named Lia Thomas has suddenly penetrated the all-time elite women’s ranks after three unremarkable collegiate seasons. This is the result not of massive performance gains—in fact, Thomas is slightly slower in the pool than in the past—but of Thomas swimming for three years on the Penn men’s team, taking the 2020-2021 season off while undergoing medical androgen suppression, and returning to compete as a woman for his final season of eligibility.
Thomas’ feats have injected a comparatively uncomplicated opportunity for everyday news consumers—sports fans and otherwise—to see the typical results of an unremarkable young male athlete suppressing his testosterone levels for a year or so, changing his name, and competing against his female peers. As described in those fantastic above-linked OutKick stories by Joe Kinsey, the results for Will Thomas-turned-Lia Thomas have been outstanding.
At least in the water. Not surprisingly, at least some of the women on the Penn women’s swimming team aren't thrilled to have someone with a ventral fin cleaning their clocks, and it would be bizarre to assume that their discomfiture is not shared widely throughout the NCAA. Also not surprisingly, they’re loath to make a ruckus; one anonymous response is basically, “It’s only the Ivy League, so nobody cares” (legit LOL here), but most women athletes whose own thinking is not retarded by ambient Wokism are exquisitely aware that speaking out against any of this freewheeling nonsense these days buys you the label of a transphobe and nothing more than censure and grief.
In June, someone started a Twitter thread dedicated to keeping a detailed list of transgender women who have won in various sports after being mediocre (at best) male athletes. Such a list can only grow in one direction, and the number of names on it is now up to about thirty. The reach of their “new life” feats is quite impressive.
What has the running media had to say over the years about this possib—er, this veritable inevitability? Exactly what the same stubbornly misguided twits have offered about the effects of testosterone itself on athletic performance and the retained advantages of post-transition former men over biological women: Bullshit and more bullshit, often heavily seasoned with legitimate confusion and ignorance.
Keep in mind the sampling of bullshit below is entirely distinct from the bullshit the media have unleashed about DSD runners, and also includes only one story from a mainstream legacy source despite The New York Times, the Washington Post, et al. being incredibly busy sowing misinformation and disinformation on the transgender front for five-plus solid years.
"A lot of people think transgender women have an advantage in athletics—but science doesn’t support that conclusion. If transgender women had an advantage, you would see us dominating over our cisgender counterparts, but this simply isn’t happening."
Amelia Gapin, Women's Running, Feb. 10, 2016
"Transwomen runners have faced backlash from those who claim they have testosterone levels that give them an unfair advantage against other women."
Theresa Juva-Brown, Women's Running, Feb. 28, 2019
"There is no research that consistently and reliably shows that trans women have any advantage over cisgender women in sports."
Stephanie Case, Outside Online, May 8, 2019
"Part of the resistance to creating inclusive spaces comes from false information that those who transition to their correct gender identity of female have an unfair advantage over cisgender female athletes due to their exposure to testosterone."
Malissa Rodenburg, Women's Running, June 17, 2020
"For transgender runners, one of the biggest hurdles they’re facing is getting the general public and lawmakers to understand that they’re not out there sweeping the podiums of all (or even most) of the races they’re lining up for—they just want the chance to run ... a decade after the NCAA enacted its current policy, not only are transgender women not dominating the sport, they are still vastly underrepresented."
Emilia Benton, Runner's World, March 18, 2021
"Proponents of the bills, such as a coalition called Save Women’s Sports, say that they aren’t meant to hurt LGBTQ youth, but to protect women and girls from having to compete against athletes who may have a ‘biological advantage.’ ... The science of whether transgender girls and women have an unfair advantage is less established than (Save Women's Sports founder Beth) Stelzer suggests, however, and fears that trans athletes will take over women’s sports have so far proven largely unfounded."
Krista Langlois, Outside Online, March 24, 2021
"While some argue that there’s not enough data to definitely disprove any advantage, trans women should not need to clear an arbitrarily high bar to be allowed to compete ... Simply put, there currently isn’t data to support exclusion."
David Roche, Trail Runner, June 22. 2021
“Contrary to fears expressed by some, there has been no large-scale dominance of transgender athletes in women’s sports.”
Gillian R. Brassil and Jeré Longman, The New York Times, Aug. 3, 2021"Most of these debates have centered on supposed physical advantages that transgender runners–in particular, trans women–have in running events. These debates often use the same one or two studies, with limited numbers of participants, to argue that trans women cannot fairly compete against cisgender women. This is hardly enough research to claim as irrefutable evidence that trans women have a physical advantage."
Lee Grabarek, Trail Runner, Dec. 3, 2021
All of these people are liars, and even the most generous interpretation of the statements above, which amounts to “They didn’t know these things would happen and couldn’t have known better,” doesn’t work, because those in the let-them-compete faction have made plain throughout this extended mess that they don’t care about anything besides getting their own twisted way. They have created a framework in which fairness only matters in terms of how they view and define it. Like all hardcore devotees to the religion of Wokism, they view terms like “unfair advantage” as annoyances to be batted aside, not legitimate viewpoints to be engaged.
Many pro-trans pundits propose that testosterone’s varied effects aren’t the primary determinant of male athletic superiority. Why, then, would this same crowd believe that testosterone suppression would have any effect on performance? What effects, on their view, are there to even suppress? Toxic masculinity alone?
Regardless, one of the OutKick pieces describes a research paper published in December 2020 lending strong credence to what anecdotal observations—basically, common adult sense—have suggested all the while: That “transitioning,” especially with hormones alone, fails to sufficiently diminish male athletic capabilities to a point that creates a level playing field.
The 15–31% athletic advantage that transwomen displayed over their female counterparts prior to starting gender affirming hormones declined with feminising therapy. However, transwomen still had a 9% faster mean run speed after the 1 year period of testosterone suppression that is recommended by World Athletics for inclusion in women’s events.
After 2 years of taking feminising hormones, the push-up and sit-up differences disappeared but transwomen were still 12% faster.
(Cue the cries of “It’s only one study.”)
Benton's article, in addition to its “they just want to participate” cant, includes this well-buried fact: "Athletes assigned female at birth are also still eligible to compete in (NCAA) women’s sports unless or until that athlete begins a physical transition using testosterone."
No matter how long the list of victorious transgender females gets, trans-rights yutzes can always keep saying that it represents a tiny minority of overall sports outcomes. In addition to inviting the question, “Okay, how many unfair losses is too many for you feminists?”, this fails to acknowledge Wokesters’ own zero-tolerance policies across the board. Anytime a woman runner comes forward saying she has developed an eating disorder, even anonymously, a rush ensues to blame the coach and re-indict the entire patriarchal system. If a person of color doesn't get to litter some race director's Facebook page with political chatter the page rules explicitly forbid, the race director is branded a racist and hounded for weeks. Anything a runner of color says is automatically right, and anything a white person says about that person is automatically wrong and suspect in its motivation—even when that runner of color is a proven liar, cheater, and grifter. Any instance of calling these ethical violators out is some combination of grisly isms -- fatphobia, racism, sexism, anti-[insert letter string].
Imagine a policy enacted that was bound to keep a group of women from attaining high managerial positions in the business world. A few years later, it could be definitively shown that the policy had penalized at least thirty hard-working women. Would Wokish people be saying, "Ah, what’s a handful of outliers?" then?
Transgender people who want to play sports already have the opportunity to do that, and with the creation of a lot less controversy than mixing trans and biological girls on the same teams does. They can't make choices that have profound effects on others' sports and life experience and expect all of society to just cheerfully play along. They can't have it all, any more than the rest of us can, simply because aspects of their lives are uniquely difficult.
If stocking women's rosters with the bedicked is just about participation, not unfairly beating women, why did Thomas swim for three years at Penn as a male, take a year off while undergoing hormone suppression, and return to swim for a single season on the women's team? He couldn't have just graduated after spending his senior year swimming at the Y or a health club? He had to compete against women as his "authentic self," despite this authenticity requiring an influx of endocrine-system-warping drugs?
When it comes to people who no longer wish to serve openly as males claiming spots on female sports-team rosters, the pertinent “progressive” slogan is “trans females just want to participate in sports, not unfairly deprive anyone of anything.” Like every dousing of misinformation or straight-faced lie offered by “inclusivity” zealots, this was always a joke under the surface. But it’s becoming increasingly difficult to convincingly prop up the joke as a sincere entreaty. Those of us who reject Wokish morality and epistemology would find it hard to describe Thomas’ “participation” in NCAA athletics in 2021-22 as anything but a systematic effort to do what you’re supposed to do in sports and win like hell.
The number of minimally educated people who actually think that policies allowing this kind of thing to happen are fair is small and shrinking. The number of people who know they’re unfair but want them in place anyway is probably stable; these are your Wokesters, and they don’t listen to diddlytwat. But despite their stranglehold on the media and their systematic ruination of the American educational system, too many people are watching too much craziness unfold with their own eyes to be completely brainwashed by the arsonists and drones who are doggedly pumping out misinformation on this front.
I hope people just start pointing and laughing at this madness for what it is, because not only is it a joke whose punch line is female athletes, but such a collective response is exactly what the lying, gaslighting, preening, and genetic alchemy of the “We just want life better for the world, that’s all!” dingbats among us deserves. It only feels good some of the time. But this has started to feel necessary all of the time. We* should give other people precisely the respect for facts and reasoned discourse they extend toward us.