The Washington Post finally mentioned the Ivy League sex-and-swimming scandal, and the reaction from its liberal Democratic readers is overwhelming; Male swimmer Lia Thomas does not belong in women’s swim races, even if he thinks he has a woman’s “gender identity.”
Well, here's one Democrat that thinks this is ridiculous. She competed as a man two years earlier. That should disqualify her from competing as a woman. I don't even know why this is a debate. Transgender should have their own category. This is a matter of fairness, not equality.
— Guitar Cat (@_GuitarCat_) January 10, 2022
I am all for inclusion but this is ridiculous
— Jose F (@jfriano) January 11, 2022
Author Rick Maese’s January 10 article tried to thread the needle between his pro-transgender peers and the newspapers’ pro-fairness, pro-women readers:
Since she [sic] obliterated two school records and posted nation-leading times at a meet last month, Thomas has garnered attention from across the swimming community and right-wing media. Credentialed media at Saturday’s meet included Fox News, Newsweek, the Daily Mail and ESPN. Tennis icons Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert have publicly said Thomas has no business competing in women’s swimming, as has Olympian Erika Brown, who said last month it’s “time to start standing up for women’s sports.”
…
Nancy Hogshead-Makar, chief executive of Champion Women, a women’s sports advocacy organization, said concerns around Thomas’s spot on the women’s team aren’t rooted in transphobia or discrimination. Hogshead-Makar’s issues are with the rule book that allows Thomas to compete in women’s sports and with sports officials whom the advocate argues are putting Thomas’s competitors at a disadvantage.
“This topic is very uncomfortable for people. They don’t understand it, and so they took the lazy way out,” said Hogshead-Makar, who won four swimming medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. “The lazy way out is saying, ‘Put them in the women’s category.’
“To blow up the women’s category is just not the answer. This makes the women’s category meaningless.”
Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of tweeted responses to the article were scornful of the claim that men who claim to be women should be allowed to participate in women’s sports:
This needs to stop.
Making a personal choice is fine. There should be clear caveats with these choices.
Ramming it down the throat of collegiate athletes is wrong.
— American Birthboy (@AramNYC) January 11, 2022
While I support transgender athletes, particularly in middle and high school, were sports are about teamwork, the mechanics of a body born male are different than one born female. Perhaps there needs to be a separate category for transgender athletes at the elite level.
— everlovinaddie (@AddieShepherd19) January 11, 2022
I absolutely believe in supporting the trans community. But no way should a man compete with women. I absolutely stand up for trans people, and I absolutely will stand up for women. Somehow in this whole conversation we have lost common sense.
— DonajueDee (@DonajueDee) January 10, 2022
When LGBT-friendly icons like Martina Navratilova say this is unfair – it's unfair.
— @The_C_Agenda (@c_agenda) January 10, 2022
The response also used laughter to criticize the Post‘s acceptance of the claim that a man must be treated as a woman whenever he says he feels like a woman.
— Barbara Trudell (@trudell_barbara) January 10, 2022
Except those elites working in media and the whole Democrat Party, I don't think there is any support for this craziness.
— RT🇺🇲 (@rtoh) January 10, 2022
I'm looking forward to the day when we transcend not just sex, but species, too. When cheetahs and horses can be identified as human and crush the land records of Usain Bolt. Because it's just about the speed, right? Not specific categories of living creatures competing.
— Califasauros (@califasauros) January 10, 2022
— RevFemStreetBeat (@RevFemStBeat) January 11, 2022
There were a few supporters who tweeted their support for Thomas:
Trans women are women so I don't understand the controversy. Maybe just jealousy because she is a bad a** who is clearly an amazing swimmer. I would love to see her go after Katy ladecky records
— Igor Sdorov ( he / him) – lockdowns work! (@ISdorov) January 10, 2022
The polls have shifted decisively against the transgender activists, partly because of coverage from mainstream media outlets, such as Breitbart News.
The Washington Post article was posted a few days after a strategy guide by transgender activists admitted that many polls show the public has already rejected the transgender ideology.
Breitbart News reported on December 30 about how the advocacy group is urging allies to conceal transgender advocacy under sympathy for various other groups:
“Right now, our opposition wins the debate on trans youth in sports against any and all arguments we have tried for our side,” admits a “Messaging Guide” by the California-based Transgender Law Center.
Overall, “we can at best elicit sympathy, a passive and often patronizing attitude that alienates our base [of current supporters] and fails to generate sustained interest from persuadable audiences” of swing voters, said the guide, which is titled “Transgender Youth and the Freedom to Be Ourselves.”
The counter-strategy is to stealthily hook their aggressive ideology to the public’s existing sympathy for poor people, women, and racial minorities, according to the messaging guide:
[Advocates should use] “…the Race Class Narrative to tell a convincing story of how … by coming together, we can ensure we all have the freedom to be ourselves and support one another.”
The guide offered several examples of how the advocacy can be concealed, including an ironically titled “Authentic Selves” pitch that matches the New York Times’s coverage of the Jeopardy! sex scandal:
Across our races, backgrounds and genders, we want to be treated with dignity and respect. But today, certain politicians are pushing laws that restrict our freedoms because of the color of our skin, what’s in our wallets, or because we are transgender. They exploit divisions and fears among us so they can get and hold onto power, denying us the basic rights, resources, and respect all people deserve. By [rejecting this division and] passing protections against discrimination, we can ensure each one of us has the freedom to be ourselves, pursue our dreams, and have a good life — no exceptions.
The advocacy group downplayed the huge health and psychological costs for people who claim to be transgender. But even the Washington Post’s op-ed section spotlighted the dangers in November.
“We may be harming some of the young people we strive to support — people who may not be prepared for the gender transitions they are being rushed into,” said a Washington Post op-ed by the two prominent advocates of the transgender ideology, psychologist Laura Edwards-Leeper, and Erica Anderson, who says she is transgender.
The article was given a very prominent position — three-quarters of the first page in the Washington Post’s prestigious Outlook section on Sunday, November 28.
The New York Times has yet to address the transgender sex scandal, despite its extensive coverage of the #MeToo sexual-assault scandal.
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