Why Trans Athletes Spells Bad News For Your Grandma's Feminism
The law of unintended consequences is the liberals’ Groundhog Day. In their pleasant “everyone deserves a chance” worldview, liberals insist there shouldn’t be impediments to likeable pals who want to shove the goal posts a few feet in a new direction.
“Who are they hurting?” Is what you hear when good will comes up against good governance. So change the law. End the tradition. It’s win/ win. Till liberals wind up hoist by their own petard.
When the transgender issue inserted itself in public debate, liberals reflexively shrugged their shoulders and said, “live and let live”. If they want to wear a dress or chemically/ surgically change their physical appearance, that’s their business. That included letting trans people participate in competitive sports in their new identity.
The flaw in this genial acceptance of trans people became obvious in about 30 seconds. In men’s sports, where strength, power, speed are paramount, a trans person identifying as a man faces significant handicaps from having been born and lived as a woman for years. No man was going to be disenfranchised by a trans man.
But a person who now identifies as a woman can have major advantages if they participate in women’s sports where strength and speed is a deciding factor. Even if they submit to drug regimes and surgery, a skeletal and muscular benefit remains. In sports with huge pay days for women— tennis, golf, some Olympic sports— that can mean traditional women could be shut out of the benefits.
A cheque for millions might slip out of the reach of those born (and still identifying) as women. Ditto an Olympic gold medal. Or, a scholarship for a high school champion
Former tennis star Martina Navratilova said it was “insane” and “cheating” to allow transgender women to participate in women’s sports. She was then mobbed by the Left and forced to backtrack her opinion. Indeed, progressive media has (once again) led the cancel crusade, shutting down debate on a subject, forcing women to silence themselves.
Some voices have been raised, however. Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has accused president Joe Biden of “paving the way for a federal mandate that all schools receiving federal funding let biological men play on women’s sports teams.” Polls show over 50 percent of respondents still oppose the mixing of trans athletes in traditional sports (that falls to 40 percent when liberals are polled).
Sports organizations and courts have been scrambling to balance fairness with inclusion. The International Olympic Committee is currently planning to allow trans athletes, while college sports have a patchwork of regulations. Expect no clear resolution of the issue anytime soon as gender identity keeps morphing.
Watching this spectacle wth trepidation are legacy feminists, whose entire political raison d’être has been predicated on there being a traditional female gender. The sacred creed of a woman’s right to choose is dependent on their being a distinct definition of a woman. It’s their line in the sand as they seek to uphold Roe v Wade or Canada’s laws governing abortion.
The current fetish for pretending trans men can menstruate or bear children— previously the sacred domain of women— is an existential challenge to the women who transported radical gender politics from higher education into the public sphere. The blurring of this line— adopted by the same liberals who once supported them in establishing feminist laws— leaves women as just one of myriad grievance groups now being accepted by government and (gasp) corporate friends.
There is no room on the modern gender bandwagon for Old Think. So get with Team Victim. As we wrote last October, “… having joined Team Victim, women have discovered that while they may gain equality with men, they have been placed miles behind other grievance groups in the Woke hit parade.
“While a women must, in Hillary Clinton’s words, always be believed in any “he said/ she said”, this blanket exemption does not apply when a white women is in conflict with many other political flavours of the day. In the wrong equation even devoted feminists can find themselves accused of white privilege or cultural appropriation. “
So far, most stars of 1970s and 80s feminism have been mute on this bind, torn between their loyalty to old friends in The Progressive Movement and their fear of being declared non-persons if they point out the obvious flaw in the present gender deconstruction.
Feminists are likewise caught in the Woke paradox over vaccination passports that is now consuming oxygen amongst the chattering classes. Liberals panicked by Covid-19 are angling for portable health cards that document vaccinations, infections and health issues. Perhaps smoking/ alcohol consumption? The travel industry has made noises about using the passports to track its clients and the risks they may/ may nor pose.
Again, the feminist bottom line espoused by women such as former SCOTUS icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg has always been a woman privately deciding her own heath issues in consultation with a doctor. Anything less in an invasion of constitutional rights on privacy. But government mandating that your personal details be made public to airline attendants, hotel managers and the guy at your health club?
As we say. Liberals never see unintended consequences. Which gets back to the old maxim: liberals have many things to live for. They just have nothing they’re willing to die for.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his new book Personal Account with Tony Comper is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx