Women, being fake? That's an old sexist stereotype — female guile and deceit.
And speaking of old patterns... feminism always steps back politely and allows others to go first. Young girls get the message: Don't be mean. No one will love you if you are mean.
ADDED: Surely, Lia Thomas has read this news — the news that these teammates are 2-faced, fake friends. Here's a test of femaleness, just a thought experiment, not a real, proposed test: Did Thomas break down and cry? Did Thomas confront the teammates in an emotional outburst?: How could you treat me this way? Lying to my face! I thought you were my friends!
It occurs to me that the project of women's sports has played out. There was an idea — something that began after I graduated from high school (1969) — that sports could transform women into empowered competitors. Feminism boosted female athletes, and some young women participated, and they were highlighted and extolled, even as — everyone knew — they only excelled compared to each other.
Listen to Serena Williams. There's no stronger woman, but "I only want to play girls":
Maybe that's something beautiful — something women created that should be celebrated and preserved and jealously guarded.
But look at what transgender women bring to the discussion. It's the idea that there is an inward psychology that is female, that's more important than any outward manifestation. Does that feeling include athletic competitiveness? That's what the women-in-sports movement believed could be created. But if women in sports were really aggressively competitive, they would fight to exclude the transgender competitor, not welcome and cheer on this person who's going to deprive them of their victories.
If kindness and friendship and sociability are predominant elements of the female psyche, then the transgender female destroys the foundation of the women-in-sports movement, though women can still do sports in a traditional female way — for fun, for good times with friends, for good health. It won't matter who wins. That's the male style of sports, where the saying is "winning isn't everything, it's the only thing."
But the women on Lia Thomas's team did not completely melt into kindness and inclusivity. That's only how they acted on the outside. Inside, they felt aggrieved. But perhaps that's the female way — nice on the outside, chronically unsatisfied on the inside. And that's a core concern of feminism. But to raise that concern in this context is to be a TERF. And mainstream feminism is now staunchly TERFphobic.
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134 comments:
I say get the guy with the balls out of the damn girl’s swim team.
But if I was a student and said that, I would destroy my future.
So this isn’t about shyness or niceness: it questions whether the rest of us stand up against the misogyny, anti-female gender weaponization and fascistic punishment for mere speech that is threatening the future of these girls and silencing them.
The semantics and stereotypes are piffle in the face of this sort of danger.
It isn't just being mean either or maybe this is a component of that, which is, women aren't supposed to be too competitive or ambitious. Those are masculine traits. I do appreciate that Lia is displaying a desire to succeed at sport, which all women can always use that encouragement, and not just defining her new self by wearing stylish clothes and lots of makeup. Although maybe she does do that away from the pool.
As suggested by a caller to Dennis Prager's radio show the other day: the swimmers should take their positions on the blocks, get ready, and then not jump into the pool. Let the XY set all the records for women's swimming he can. Of course, this won't happen because modern day feminism has turned women into cowards.
This may be the Arnhem Bridge of the trans movement.
How long will female athletes put up with this? Martina has been right about this all along.
Now there’s a question! Is swimming an individual or team sport?
for years, feminists have correctly said, that women were JUST AS CAPABLE AS MALES
for years, we had to listen to sexist males say; "Oh, that's not entirely true!"
(stupid males!!!)
NOW! it's been PROVEN, than female swimmers are just as fast a male swimmers
As long as the female swimmers have dicks
There Is NO DIFFERENCE between male and female! (the difference is between penis and vagina)
“according to a Penn female swimmer who said she feared for her ability to find employment after graduating from college”
Abigail Shrier was right.
my last comment was snarky, but THIS ONE, is serious
What will this mean, for pro sports?
Will the WNBA's fan base swallow the idea of chix with dicks?
What about women's soccer? If they start getting good players, what happens to salaries?
Funny how a couple of juries who aren’t in on the scam can wreck the work of countless political grifters.
Like a Sunday morning building implosion, it blows up and collapses upon itself…
"...miss out on all that we’ve been working for." Like losing to someone who shouldn't be competing against you? I have empathy for the women being dragged through this but unless school administrators and/or sanctioning bodies like the NCAA put a stop to the practice, it's only going to get worse. I'm waiting for a 6'-8" male volleyball player to come out for a women's team -- that will be something!
"I think secretly everyone just knows it’s the wrong thing to do... When the whole team is together, we have to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, go Lia, that’s great, you’re amazing.’ It’s very fake...."
The key is to use the right tone.
‘Oh my gosh, go Lia, that’s great, you’re amazing’
The haters and the politely pointing-outers just mad that this proves one person on the women’s swim team can swim as fast as men.
Work harder, losers.
Young girls get the message: Don't be mean. No one will love you if you are mean.
Oh, I think they're more afraid of being called transphobic.
You don't get cancelled for being mean. If you're mean to the right people, you become exalted.
Coaches that go along with the trans males participation on their teams so that they win are not serving their team well. Even if you win, there’s an asterisk exception on your record, and that reduces the level of achievement and pride of accomplishment. Just like anytime you have a “ringer” on your team - someone overqualified for that competitive segment - it’s just wrong and unsportsmanlike conduct.
It's no secret that Feminists are currently destroying Feminism and Women.
We are now on what, 4th or 5th generation feminism?
As I understand this, we first had the suffrage movement where women were given the right to vote (effort started circa 1840 with US voting allowed in 1920). The 1960s were the first contemporary broad/meaningful split with traditional roles, following from the rise of Playboy Magazine, birth control pills, the Rat Pack's club party culture, and free love.
Feminism arose per a break with the traditional balance of the sexes, as everything in the 1960s favored easy access to sex by males. Women, in turn, needed new and different economic and social calculations. If sex is now free and expected in general relationships, then abortion must be a priority.
At all times in history and all across the world, women have tended to depend on others (i.e., economics of child bearing), react, and resonate to social themes per changing conditions and needs. Upon achieving what was perceived as essential (i.e., abortion), women shifted to characteristically feminine support for others, compassion, and deference to males. This should be no shock to anyone around the world. Deference to transgendered male-to-female athletes fits traditional feminine behaviors to a "T".
However, this form of deference involves supreme irony, as it brings back exactly what prior generations of feminists fought against. Do girls today dream of being mothers themselves, or dream of stepping out of the way to support others? To the extent that sex changes reduce or eliminate the potential to reproduce (i.e., sterility), the current generation (or subculture) must find a way to reproduce--and fast--or they will die off. Many ideologies do die off.
If only "she" was black!&
Coincidentally, Abigail Shrier substack post discusses this, in part:
“Ellie Marquart swam her heart out for Princeton. When will Princeton fight for her? Where are the student protests to say—enough is enough. When a biological male who has enjoyed the full benefits of male puberty—larger cardiovascular system, 40% more upper body muscle mass, more fast-twitch muscle fiber, more oxygenated blood—decides after three seasons on the men’s team to compete as a woman and smashes the records of the top female swimmers in this country, that is not valor—that’s vandalism.
Where is the outrage? Imagine, for a second, what it must be like to be a female swimmer at Princeton, knowing you must pretend that this is fair—that the NCAA competition is anything other than a joke. Imagine being told to bite your tongue as men lecture you that you just need to swim harder. “Be grateful for your silver medals, ladies, and maybe work harder next time,” is the message. Imagine what that level of repression does to warp the soul.”
https://abigailshrier.substack.com/
That was from her “What I told the students at Princeton” article at https://abigailshrier.substack.com/
We are many of us 'fake' when confronted by the power to deny us our dreams, they way these women have been.
Bullshit. My only hope is that a team of men-girls take over Womens Soccer so we never have to listen to or see that purple haired little boy-girl who hates America and has no problem with men playing on her team. She wouldn't be a "thing" if this was okay before she was on the team.
I am an empiricist. There are no female to male transgenders setting state records, competing in the Olympics, and generally kicking ass in any sport. Until this occurs, I will believe my eyes and state the male to female transgenders have a competitive advantage in sports.
When I say "believe my eyes" I mean literally. There are two transgenders racing bicycles in Northern California. Both are doing really, really well. One of them flew off the front of the pack on a sprint finish and won going away. My wife (who races against him/her depending on the age groups and skill levels in a given race) was watching at the finish. Someone said, "Wow! She's got incredible power!" and my wife said, "No, he's got incredible power."
I don’t by that analysis. It seems wokeism is more powerful than feminism-
It’s a hierarchical jockeying for power. I don’t believe women of today have even one iota of the battles fought by women of “ago”. I was listening to John McWhorter being interviewed by a lovely young man who’s last name is Hughes- discussing that very subject albeit w/in the black community. Very parallel, IMhumbleO.
We are a freak show where everyone is screaming “same/same”- and it’s embarrassing-to me, anyway.
Stop being selfish and stand up for the Truth- Lia is in a class all of her own.
"Women, being fake? That's an old sexist stereotype — female guile and deceit."
And doing it for the sake of a male ego.
Being “fake” is cringy. But there’s a catch 22, if you will. “If you spot it, you got it” says if you spot inauthenticity is because you might be inauthentic yourself. By not reacting as expected the girls are probably onto this very quandary. I was thinking about this in terms of the earlier post about how democrats treat Latino voters. To my mind being an American is not secondary to being Latino or whatever other category, if anything it undermines it. The girls know and believe they are women competing in a women's sport. Whatever others believe about them, that’s their problem.
What I see: fear from the female swimmer for being deemed unwoke by the more left-wing members of the University.
It is a very natural animal instinct for women to submit in face of an aggressive male.
Don't worry. Leftist women like their men aggressive and rapey. They don't mind taking it on the chin for the cause.
Many women will aggressively support their abusers out of fear they will be banished from the leftist tribe.
The women in that other tribe may seem happier. But that is not how primitive tribal affiliation works.
It is too dangerous to switch tribes. Too scary. If women think for themselves the leftists will kick them out and find more submissive females.
And as Ann is constantly pointing out, those women over there may be happy and treated better, but they are icky Trump supporters.
And they support bans on abortion after 15 weeks! OH THE HORROR!
Because being able to have your late term baby chopped up and sold for planned parenthood slush funds is super important. FWEEDOM!
I understand he wouldn't qualify for the Olympics as he hasn't been female-enough long enough. LGB
Female agreeableness is not a stereotype, it’s empirical. It’s not always a good thing. This is one such example. Standing up against the group consensus and being unpopular is sometimes necessary to make anything worthwhile happen. It looks like women are willing to sacrifice the existence of women’s sports rather than being mean to some person with a penis who wants to say he’s a woman, and compete against women, where he is more likely to win. If women will not speak up to protect what they have, something that others obtained for them, that benefits them, which is good for women, because they were afraid of being unpopular, then they deserve to lose it.
Women, being fake? That's an old sexist stereotype — female guile and deceit.
It’s a stereotype because it’s real, especially the deceit. The girls who are good enough to make another team should just transfer at the end of the season should just transfer. If “Lia” is the only athlete left on the team then the coach — whom I blame the most — winds up looking for a new job.
Is it a female thing? I would think of it as a university thing, universities being places where it is understood that politically incorrect opinions cannot be publicly expressed, and that you will be shunned and probably disciplined if you do so.
Women's sports - can we even use that term today? not very woke, if you ask me...but who's asking? - will soon be the equivalent of high school junior varsity teams - all third and fourth tear male athletes.
"Godel, Escher, Bach" has this concept of a phonograph dubbed "Record Player X" that destroys itself by playing a record titled 'I Cannot Be Played on Record Player X'. Basically, the phonograph represents any sort of system and the record is a set of valid looking inputs into that system that break the system.
I think you're describing the same thing here.
“ But look at what transgender women bring to the discussion. It's the idea that there is an inward psychology that is female, that's more important than any outward manifestation”
This, I think, is the basic fallacy of the transgender movement. It has not been my experience that basic psychology differs by sex. There is no male/female of the soul. When I approach a patient, I only consider their maleness and femaleness as it pertains to their physical bodies - their anatomy and their physiology. When it comes to relating to them as a person - their hopes, dreams, anxieties, sorrows - I don’t consider their sex at all. To do so would be to view them with a preconceived prejudice. “Oh, of course you feel that way, you’re a woman” or a man. When it comes down to our psyches we are not man or woman, we are human. Now, bodies are entirely different. And that’s why sports are divided by sex. Serena Williams is right.
Is it that feminism has a hard time coping with the fact that while women can be impressive and amazing athletes, the best women are no match for the best men in any activity that calls for any combination of strength, endurance, agility, and coordination?
If you can’t acknowledge that reality, then it’s hard to complain about the unfairness of dudes competing in these sports.
The linked article has a quote that explains in a nutshell why this is being allowed:
“ Pretty much everyone individually has spoken to our coaches about not liking this. Our coach [Mike Schnur] just really likes winning. He’s like most coaches. I think secretly everyone just knows it’s the wrong thing to do,” the female Penn swimmer said during a phone interview.”
Ever met a coach who doesn’t like winning? Now it’s OK to cheat!
“When the whole team is together, we have to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, go Lia, that’s great, you’re amazing.’ It’s very fake,” she added.
Too bad this nice young lady didn't highlight the other thing that is fake. That is that Lia is a fake women. It's hard to discern I know. Another hoax perpetrated by our lefty friends.
I'm not a transphobe. I do not fear people who were born with genetic differences and mutations that make them different.
But this is ridiculous. These women better stand up for their sport, or they will never win again.
I don't have a daughter, but I've coached boys' sports up to the high school level. I know what 16-18 year old boys are capable of in athletics.
The advantage in speed and strength compared to the girls is astounding and undeniable to anyone who will look. You may as well call the sports by different names.
I long for the day when five college freshmen, each of whom played varsity in high school but got no further, get together, identify as women, and make the starting 5 of a division 1 women's college basketball team.
I want women to play sports at all levels. I think sports for kids is a great thing for many reasons. But the only way to make that happen is to smash it all to itty bitty pieces in the short term.
But the women on Lia Thomas's team did not completely melt into kindness and inclusivity. That's only how they acted on the outside. Inside, they felt aggrieved. But perhaps that's the female way — nice on the outside, chronically unsatisfied on the inside. And that's a core concern of feminism.
No. That is merely your animal instincts driving you to submit to the dominant male and procreate.
My daughters are going to grow up and be free of this. They are going to understand how their brains and hormones work.
And we are not going to let dumb primitive thinking progressive women give up women's sports.
I coached both boys and girls Catholic grade school basketball. My kids participated in all sports. My oldest daughter (like me) was not very good. My son was much better than me. My youngest daughter qualified for the state swimming meet and broke 6o seconds in the 100 free relay.
Sports is a great thing for girls and young women.
That being said, there are distinct difference between the sexes. With my girls basketball team, one girl fell down in the lane during practice. Play just stopped and the other girls helped her up and asked her if she was okay. I laughed and laughed. I told the girls that's not how the game is played. My "no crying in baseball" moment.
These girls learned. Many of them went to Duschesne Academy of the Sacred Heart. It is the elite, country club and rich girls school in Omaha. We were playing a team from Council Bluffs, Iowa. CB is very, very blue collar town. One of the moms complained before the game that the Duschesne girls were too tough and aggressive. And they did! My girls learned how to play on the court.
This incident led me to compose my new Duschesne cheer.
We may belong to OCC
But we've got grit and pepability
We're rough
We're tough
We're debutantes!
I have to admit this is some of the best writing on the web, and why I return to Althouse. It's so willing to confront so many different lines of thought it's just even fun to think about.
I read this comment as a kind of subversively ironic, are the girls who are all in to winning "transgender" because they are competing in a manner males do? (Winner take all). The irony of course is that (without adopting for myself as true) many old truths recognized, it is the quintessential element of womanliness that competes so aggressively because they are more acutely aware that life is truly a "winner take all" sport. Hence why the competition by subterfuge etc. is routinely engaged in, and there are no "rules" of conduct that can be guaranteed by one's competitors. See e.g. "The Female of the Species." by Kipling.
To layer on the ironic ironies, in that sense, perhaps Lia is even more 'womanly' than could possibly ever have been realized.
"...there is an inward psychology that is female, that's more important than any outward manifestation."
In wrestling, the competitors are separated by weight. But what if a wrestler has an inward psychology that is thin, even though he weighs 200 lbs? If he identifies as thin, shouldn't he be able to compete in the 150 lb. bracket? Why not? Isn't identity, rather than some random innate attribute, the most important characteristic?
This post is baffling. There's absolutely nothing these other swimmers could have done to "fight to exclude" Thomas. At the first indication of disagreement, they would have been kicked off the team and hounded out of school. Any attempt to enroll somewhere else would have been meet with protests and demands for their exclusion. Their entire social and professional futures would have been severely damaged.
At least you're honest that this means the death of women's sports.
What pro sympathetic trans women (real ones) don't understand is this will not just be a minor thing. The assumption is there are comparatively high end athletes, and even fewer with gender dysphoria, or whatever it's called.
But they miss the social contagious aspect, mixed with the sexual pathology of the un-checked male impulse. Society tells males whatever floats you boat, and you're going to get all kinds of kink, self destructive and otherwise, at the margins. Celebrate those margins and they will grow.
So we're going to see a lot more males choosing all kinds of sexual pathologies, because we refuse to treat the underlying issue. Women will continue to lose out.
Men participating in women's sports is like adults jumping into kids' little-league games.
And mainstream feminism is now staunchly TERFphobic.
It's always been staunchly something-or-other or whatever.
The tomboy is dead. Long live the tomboy!
This is against the spirit and stated purpose of Title IX, proving that the the progressivism has to keep destroying the past to keep its cult members engaged in the present no matter how good those prior programs work. Way to go Democrats! You keep saying the other party is taken over by crazies while ceding your whole agenda to the most insane leftists on the planet. Mao is smiling!
The snake eats its tail.
Female athletes should refuse to participate in any competition that includes a “shim”.
End the sham by refusing to play ANY part in it.
This is going to be rough for poor people and people on fixed income. The poor spend all of their money. And they spend more of their money on gas and heating and food, all of which are experiencing big price swings and volatility. Here in Chicago, for example, the cost of natural gas has increased from 29 cents a therm to 69 cents! What the hell?!
And this is going to exacerbate existing income inequality. Some people are like, "inflation is great because my mortgage rate is super low." I guess buying property is a great hedge against inflation, but this is sort of unfair. Anyways, these people will complain about something. Maybe higher tuition expenses or hotel bills or something.
"It occurs to me that the project of women's sports has played out. There was an idea — something that began after I graduated from high school (1969) — that sports could transform women into empowered competitors." (emphasis added)
It did transform female athletes into empowered competitors, and that's being taken away from them. I find your attitude towards their lose rather callous.
If I were in their shoes I wouldn't be nice to this interloper. I'd go down kicking and screaming.
Arghhhh I can't stop Ann...This subversiveness you say reminds me of this line of thinking, I'm feeling joy at the humor I find in all of this. Thank you!
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2020/06/hear-me-when-i-say-trump-is-first-woman.html
"If we protest it, we’re only hurting ourselves because we’re going to miss out on all that we’ve been working for."
When you're all getting blown away by the transwoman competitor, I'd argue your hard work is already being undercut. I can understand why they'd publicly act supportive even though privately they're not. Standing up against this kind of thing tends to get you branded as a hateful bigot who wants trans people to kill themselves. Who wants that scrutiny when you just showed up to swim?
These women may have to as themselves if maybe them missing out is a worthy trade off to improve the overall situation for other women. That's easy enough for me to say; my scholarship and reputation aren't on the line here. Still, taking a stand is rarely comfortable or convenient.
I always figured deep down trans women athletes know they're frauds so Thomas shouldn't be surprised or hurt.
But who knows how far the delusion goes.
Well, this is one of those Althouse posts--really quite rare--that is steeped in stereotypes.
I have another question, one that is focused on an individual: what is going through Lia Thomas's head? Why does he* think that he--an XY competing against XXs--is interesting? How crazy is he? It is more like a freak show than a competition. I am looking at it from the standpoint of an XY spectator. This is nuts.
Now I'll do an XX spectator. This is nuts. And it is a cruel joke to any serious, competitive XX athlete.
*I am ignoring Lia's preferred pronouns.
As I recall, the women-in-sports movement also believed that women's performance would eventually converge to that of men, because men and women are fundamentally equal. And it looked that way for a while, Running times got closer. But convergence has stalled. Perhaps, when it comes to athletics, men and women aren't fundamentally equal.
"But the women on Lia Thomas's team did not completely melt into kindness and inclusivity. That's only how they acted on the outside. Inside, they felt aggrieved."
I doubt they 'felt aggrieved.' I expect they were (are) seething with anger. And they should be; biological males competing in women's sports is unfair and stupid. Lia Thomas is stealing the wins that should go to real women, not biological males.
We would hear about their anger, if it wasn't for Woke self-censorship. The real women on Penn's team are afraid to speak up publicly because their lives would be destroyed by the Wokerati, if they told it like it is. Our public discourse is distorted by the power held by the Wokerati, thanks to their takeover of the culture.
Maybe what's necessary is a re-definition of sports classifications. Instead of "men's and women's sports," let's just acknowledge that the meaning of those terms has been permanently corrupted beyond recognition by the trans people. Instead, let's have XX and XY sports. Doesn't matter what you wear or how you think of yourself, sex/gender-wise. Doesn't matter what you've got 'down there' or up-top. Just present a cell (any cell in your body) for sex-chromosome classification testing. If it's XX, that's your team; if it's XY, compete with the XY crowd. No more controversy! Everyone's happy, except frauds like Lia Thomas.
The psychological is not more important than the outward manifestation. The outward is what is true. The inner(what cannot be seen) could literally be anything - like a frustrated male swimmer who wants success, in addition to a myriad other motivations.
You're getting gaslighted (gaslit?), Ann. Don't fall for it.
For ~100K years, there were girls and boys, who grew up into men and women. Yes, there were tomboys and effeminate men, but everybody knew that the former were a type of girl and the latter, men.
For the last 10-20 years, as part of an organized effort to deconstruct Western Civilization, the enemies of all that has made our lives so good and full have infiltrated the support columns of our society- education, government, mass media. Outside these silos, essentially nobody gives a thought to what pronouns to use, what bathroom to use, whether boys should compete against girls on the track team. Everybody knew. Even today, everybody in the productive world knows what to do, and they don't waste brain cycles on such fluff.
You were immersed in the educational sea, and you didn't stop to think if you were wet.
You were. Time to dry off.
The very few people who are really transgender are mentally disordered. It's a disorder with no current effective treatment, but mutilating surgery and pumping preteens full of powerful hormones is not a cure.
'She' is a he and should not be competing in women's sporting events.
Up until about ten years ago this would not even need to be said.
The 'adults' have completely abdicated their responsibilities for maintaining sensible rules of human interaction. All because they're afraid of being labeled 'transphobic' or 'racist' or 'anti-gay' or whatever is the most heinous sin of the Rightthink Crusade this week.
WTI is correct. Unfortunately the fantasists control all the levers of power in our society, from government to academia to media and entertainment, even to college sports. How this happened in such a short time will be the subject of many books a few hundred years from now. If we make it that long.
What transgender "women" bring to the discussion is dishonesty, misogyny, denial of biological science, bullying and compelled speech.
Allowing trans women to compete in womens sports "destroys the foundation of the women-in-sports movement" because they aren't women to begin with.
The women were polite on the outside due the the leveraging of a one way civility that privileges the feelings of not-women over that of actual women, coupled with the overt threats of social and professional destruction should they dare to oppose the non-women by being labeled bigots and TERFS.
The trans movement is the abusive partner of the civil rights family.
Kramer dominates the Dojo
Men are physically stronger than women, as a general rule. You can imagine yourself a women, but you are still male. science is difficult for leftists, who have a problem with reality, and attempt to construct their own fantasy world. It has never worked out well.
The post reminded me of Orwells' essay on the corruption of English into a nonsensical pile of gobblygook.
Feminism-a 50 experiment in 'feelings'. A 50 year failure.
trying to make men and women into a single sex, which is what is going on here, is insanity.
Most of us out here in flyover world, who lack the proper intellectual tags to be noticed, have been polite and allowed the children to act crazy for a bit. thankfully, the adults are slowly taking back the power to re create a functioning society.
many feelings will be hurt.
I remember film (anthropological?) of men harvesting coconuts. And they turned it into a contest. That, I thought, is what makes men different from women.
I suspect Penn's opponents are more upset than "her" teammates.
Man up girls! Cancel the non girl.
"At least you're honest that this means the death of women's sports."
Look on the bright side; it could make "women's" basketball watchable.
Howard said...
Kramer dominates the Dojo
12/10/21, 9:46 AM
Perfect!!
"Anything you can do, I can do better.
I can do anything better than you."
Up until about ten years ago this would not even need to be said.
Really? Explain Renee Richards.
I ran a 10.8 second 100m in high school. That was not bad for a white kid in 1983, but not fast enough to get me into the Illinois State finals that year. That would STILL be the U.S. girl's record. I should have transitioned after my sophomore year and my name would be in Wikipedia now instead of some slow ass girl.
what is going through Lia Thomas's head? Why does he* think that he--an XY competing against XXs--is interesting?
Exactly!
I have never understood other forms of cheating either. Where is the satisfaction? How can people enjoy winning when they know they had to cheat to do it?
'But the women on Lia Thomas's team did not completely melt into kindness and inclusivity.'
Why so mean to Lia? She was great in 'Back to the Future.'
But the women on Lia Thomas's team did not completely melt into kindness and inclusivity. That's only how they acted on the outside. Inside, they felt aggrieved.
Sounds like some of that may have to do with the swim teams coach. Perhaps they're refraining from protest because they don't want to get kicked off the team. It's understandable when you realize a lot of them have been training most of their lives for this.
Sports only makes sense when there is relative parity among competitors. That is why there are gender, weight and age divisions. We need a new division in sports. All men, All women, and open where anyone one can compete. Sort of like gender neutral bathrooms. Use it if that is your thing.
I see your Kramer dominates the Dojo and raise you with Kramer gets beaten up by little kids.
As is only right, proper and just.
6'4" basketball player who identifies as a Little Person joins Little Person league.
Sets all-time records for blocked shots and rebounds, and is surprisingly effective in the paint.
Who could have known?
: )
Serena Williams is my new hero.
'Young girls get the message: Don't be mean. No one will love you if you are mean.'
Elvis concurs...
'As I recall, the women-in-sports movement also believed that women's performance would eventually converge to that of men, because men and women are fundamentally equal.'
I remember this being a thing, but who was ever stupid enough to believe it in the first place?
Wait, probably someone in 'academia' who never saw the inside of a gym...
There is a board listing all of the school records at my son's old high school.
This school is known for having a very strong athletics program so take that into account.
But I would be a thousand dollars that 90% (but probably all) of those high school records are better than the women's world records in every sport.
I do know that 2 boys (years ago) topped 7 feet in the high jump. The women's record is around 6'10".
Now do MMA
Kevin said...
You don't get cancelled for being mean. If you're mean to the right people, you become exalted.
imagine (for fun!) an autistic sperger's teenaged girl, from Sweden...
looking at trans athletes... And scowling while shouting
HOW DARE YOU
pretty hard to imagine, isn't it? NOW, imagine her doing that, and being exalted
Not Possible, is it?
seriously,
women are now enthusiastically supporting the fact that Dicks Make You Stronger
Who'd a thunk it?
Great as Serena Williams is, she is only ranked about 768 among all tennis players.
#1 among women.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
A young man, frustrated at being second best on his swim team, forges a year-long path to realize his (really, most young men's) fantasy: crushing the competition, setting national records, and having a bevy of scantily clad females embracing him after every victory "you're the greatest!" (As for the sincerity of their ecstatic cries, well, what boy really inquires too carefully into that?)
This isn’t about sports.
This isn’t about feminism.
This isn’t about how you feel stimulated or disgusted watching a male beat a female, as it were.
This is about fascism. This is about watching college girls tremble in fear of not conforming to the official party line, because doing so will ruin their schooling and careers and soon entire lives. This is the jackboot coming down.
And if you can’t see that, good luck: you’re always the first type they eliminate when the eliminating starts. Fascism abhors a nuance.
I have a Ukrainian friend in his late fifties who drew a mocking cartoon of Lenin when he was in third grade. From that point on, he was excluded from pursuing a career in art, his one desire. He’s a talented artist. He had to buy art supplies on the black market and was once put in a Siberian camp.
That is what this is about.
Just a thought, ladies:
"Oh my gosh, go Lia, that’s great, you’re amanzing."
Tina Trent with the first comment gets it- the women on these teams aren't free to tell us what they really think. Compare this to what female competitors against the East German swimmers thought during the 1970s and 1980s- then they weren't afraid to speak up- they literally accused the East Germans of cheating, and it turned out to be true. This situation with Lia Thomas and other trans-women competing against real women is exactly the same situation- it is cheating, only now it is politically correct cheating.
If we are going to allow biological males to compete against biological females, then there should be, now, no restrictions whatsoever on using performance enhancing hormones for female competitors, right? Right?
Excellent post! An extremely clear distillation of the trans-athlete social environment!
Althouse comment reminds me of Norm Macdonald’s bit about the WNBA.
Video of Norm 👉🏽 https://youtu.be/cKDa6-FuhUI
My younger daughter was a great athlete in middle school and high school. She was two-time all-state in girls soccer, played in the Olympic Development Program for a few years, is still - after 20 years - her school's all-time leading scorer (male or female), was an adidas all-American, and had several college offers (she declined them all). I don't recall exactly how many times during her USYSA club career her team played boys teams "just for practice" but the boys won every time, no matter the age/size difference. Even once when she was on a U14 team and played a U10 boys team the boys just ran all over them. At older age groups it was even worse. We parents always hated these matches because of the risk of injury to the girls as the game they play is so different from the boys. The US women's national team once played an boys U15 team from Dallas and got beat, even shut-out I believe. It was true the women didn't play their best players in that match but you might think a team of women in 20s-30s who are essentially pro players could hand a team of young boys. Nope.
Biological boys and biological girls have no business competing against each other in athletics. It is unfair to the girls and sometimes puts them at physical risk of injury.
Except for Roe v Wade, Althouse comment about women sports makes her a Woman’s Constitution Originalist… or something.
"Running times got closer. But convergence has stalled."
Running times, on average, got closer in the 70s and 80s because women started using steroids and growth hormones in the Warsaw Pact countries, and this then spread to the female competitors in the western world (see Florence Griffith Joyner and Marion Jones of the US). The crackdown on those drugs, though, ended that, at least until this past year when testing stopped for a long while because of the pandemic (see the Jamaican women in the last Olympics, for one example, though there are others in both genders across the world).
"All because they're afraid of being labeled 'transphobic' or 'racist' or 'anti-gay' or whatever is the most heinous sin of the Rightthink Crusade this week."
I think that this misses the dynamic. There's money in grievance, including in feminist grievance. If feminists kick on trans grievances, they're undermining feminist grievance as well, and that's a money loser in the long run. Athletics are small potatoes.
Will the records that are being "broken" ever be restored, so that the real record-breakers get the credit they deserve?
Trans/neogenders, perhaps trans/socials, trans/homosexuals do enjoy physiological advantage.
That said, athletic competition is not suitable for women. With inclusive policies, they can still serve as front line soldiers. That said, women should be appointed, available, and taxable for the sake of social progress. Take a knee...
It is well established that in general men are better than women in the large majority of athletic competitions. Serena Williams would absolute destroy me in a tennis match - I would be happy if I successfully returned one of her serves - but if she played with the men she would not be a factor in major tournaments. She's good enough that in her prime she probably would make at least one deep major tournament run and/or shock a highly ranked player from time to time, but professional men that normally would never get mentioned except for being the first victim of a ranked player in a major tournament or a doubles competitor would beat her most of the time and usually without much effort. And given that tennis is notorious for being very top heavy in regard to money - the best players get paid a massive amount of money compared to even the next tier down - there would be hundreds, perhaps thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of men who would not even bother becoming professionals as there was no money in it, who, if they put in the effort, would beat Serena regularly. Serena, if forced to play with the men, would likely not be in the top 200 players. If we were in some fantasy world where everyone focused on playing competitive tennis, she almost certainly would not be in the top thousand and how far down she would fall I do not hazard a guess. It is arguable that in that setting, an average professional woman would not be in the top million.
There is absolutely no question that a male playing in competitive sports with women will have a significant advantage, no matter what steps are taken to neutralize those advantages. Yet we are supposed to pretend that this is not so. Notice who is lying to you and act accordingly.
There is no male/female of the soul. When I approach a patient, I only consider their maleness and femaleness as it pertains to their physical bodies
We are not body and spirit in the sense that they are separate and divisible. Rather, body and spirit are a communion of two that are one. Such that we are ensouled bodies, or embodied souls.
Given the essential unity of body and spirit, our sexual differentiation regards the whole person, i.e. body and spirit. It is not just our bodies that are male or female, our whole person is male or female, including our souls/spirits.
"Women, being fake? That's an old sexist stereotype — female guile and deceit."
But, as Lee Jussim showed at length, stereotypes are mostly correct.
"feminism always steps back politely and allows others to go first. Young girls get the message: Don't be mean. No one will love you if you are mean."
Except that now young girls get the message that progs will hound you forever if you deviate from the party line.
"It occurs to me that the project of women's sports has played out."
Maybe so. But there are still plenty of girls who want to play against girls, as girls.
"It's the idea that there is an inward psychology that is female, that's more important than any outward manifestation."
Actually, it's the male idea on an inward psychology that is female, one that often requires expression in the form of exaggerated outward features of femininity.
"But if women in sports were really aggressively competitive, they would fight to exclude the transgender competitor, not welcome and cheer on this person who's going to deprive them of their victories."
A non sequitur. Female athletes can be perfectly competitive in their own domain without wanting to bring on the leftist culture war against them.
"Inside, they felt aggrieved. But perhaps that's the female way"
Actually, for young athletes, it's often the rational way, considering the social and professional costs progs can inflict. From her comfortable perch, Althouse can safely ignore the political context. Young women, not so much.
"But look at what transgender women bring to the discussion. It's the idea that there is an inward psychology that is female, that's more important than any outward manifestation. Does that feeling include athletic competitiveness?"
It's interesting that "the discussion" does not involve transgender men. No one, certainly no actual man, think that there is an "inward psychology that is male" that is somehow distinct from and more important than the "outward manifestation." Nor does any man think that any transman has anything to say about masculinity, and if she does, it is to laugh.
What the exclusive focus of "the discussion" shows is that transgenderism is an attack on women, who, for all their claims to equality, are the weaker sex and therefore benefit from special protection--which we deplorables are happy to grant them as a matter of right.
Sydney, excellent comment!
I do not agree that it has anything to do with women's psychology. As far as I can tell, speaking up gets you ostracized by the people who you need to get through the damned maze and get the piece of paper you have already worked and sacrificed for. I will let you in on a little secret. I scored in the 99.7 percentile on the ACT. Yet I struggled in college classes, even in the Engineering School, until I learned to take professors instead of classes. Listen to what they want, and feed it back to them. That is what I see these poor girls doing.
"women aren't supposed to be too competitive or ambitious"? Perhaps not, but top female athletes have always been intensely competitive and ambitious, as that's part of what it takes to be a top athlete.
Oops, did I say "female" athlete? Well, yes, that's the obvious solution: since woman/girl/man/boy has been conveniently redefined as categories based on subjective criteria, what's to stop any sane athletic organization from declaring "female" and "male" divisions and competitions?
Trans warriors surely aren't going to declare that sex doesn't exist, are they? Considering the role sex plays in across the non-human biological spectrum? Are we overdue for another Scopes Monkey Trial?
Althouse: “And speaking of old patterns... feminism always steps back politely and allows others to go first. Young girls get the message: Don't be mean. No one will love you if you are mean.“
“...feminism always steps back politely....”
Remember the pink pussy hats. Among other, similar displays, e.g., “Pay for our birth control,” “Abolish Kavanaugh,” etc., that is the image of feminism. Nice girls? Not so much.
It is rich, watching Democrat feminists stand mute as trannies destroy womens’ sports. It isn’t about not being mean. It’s about, as we always knew, not having balls.
What would Hillary Clinton do?
What would Katie Ledecky do?
Have any of the transletes been asked directly about this issue?
I'm astounded how Conservatives are now the champions of women sports. LOL. Not just swimming or tennis but Wrestling, boxing, rugby, weight lifting, and shot putting.
Imagine a Right-winger 50 years ago supporting women beating each other senseless in the boxing ring! Now, they not only support it, they're upset that trans-men are showing up and taking all the prizes.
One can look at women's sports from two perspectives. First HS, grade school, etc. where the primary object is for the girls to get excercise, learn a sport, and get some exercise. Then we have the college, pro and semi-pro sports where the object is get people to watch the girl athletes on TV. There we're just presented as women playing sports and we're supposed to cheer for them or care. But why? They're just 2nd rate men.
So, who cares if Trannies take over the Women's USA Soccer team. or the US boxing team? Its absurd.
What would Hillary Clinton do?
What would Katie Ledecky do?
What would Brian Boitano do?
'She's good enough that in her prime she probably would make at least one deep major tournament run and/or shock a highly ranked player from time to time...'
No. She'd be lucky to win a single game.
Althouse: “And speaking of old patterns... feminism always steps back politely and allows others to go first. Young girls get the message: Don't be mean. No one will love you if you are mean.“
******************
You must not remember Limbaugh playing audio of some feminists raging, "We're fierce! We're feminists! And we're in your face!!"
"Young girls get the message: Don't be mean. No one will love you if you are mean."
*****************
This strikes me as an utterly FALSE construct. Why is objecting to a man competing in a female sports event "mean"?
Why are so many people letting insane leftists bully them into submitting to the insane idea that a person can change is BIOLOGICAL SEX by just changing his or her deranged "mind"?
Since at least the late 60's feminism has pushed the idea that women can do anything a man can do. We've had women superheroes, we've had tough female soldiers (as in "Aliens"), we've had save-the-day female astronauts. We've had many TV and movies pushing the idea of tough female politicians, including VEEPS and Presidents.
Hillary et al were supposed to be "role models", remember?
No. Women are being gaslighted into SUBMISSION by fucked-up and dangerous people.
Straight up.
(as for team sports, you won't see trans men trying to get into high school football or basketball. The physicality of those sports will leave them with broken bones and worse.)
"No. She'd be lucky to win a single game."
Some years ago, Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert were the best women tennis players on the planet. They were beaten handily in a doubles match against Neil and Jeb Bush, a couple of good-but-not-great collegiate players.
Joe Smith said...
No. She'd be lucky to win a single game.
Wikipedia on Karsten Braasch:
Braasch competed in a "Battle of the Sexes" contest against the Williams sisters (Venus and Serena) at the 1998 Australian Open when he was ranked 203. Braasch was described by one journalist as "a man whose training regime centred around a pack of cigarettes and more than a couple bottles of ice cold lager". He nonetheless defeated both sisters, playing a single set against each, beating Serena 6–1 and Venus 6–2. Braasch was thirty years old at the time, while Venus and Serena were seventeen and sixteen, respectively.
I used to work with a woman who believed that all of the differences in athletic ability between males and females were due to socialization. This woman had a graduate degree in a hard science (geology), and she was actually pretty smart. Her masters thesis had been a critique of the way that geologists modeled landslides that occurred under water. There is a lot of math in that.
She really believed that the difference in men's and women's athletic ability was purely a social thing because little boys were encouraged to play sports and little girls weren't.
We were the same age, and I am no athlete. I never played any sport when I was young other than field hockey. We both worked behind desks. She was probably more physically active than I was (she rode horses).
But I had four inches of height on her and fifty pounds of weight. I could have broken her like a matchstick.
But she believed what she believed.
Use your common sense . . . right now these guys are winning against women because they are trailblazers. Soon more women-with-penises will join the ladies teams and all the competitors for prizes set aside for female athletes will be biologically male.
No one will watch women's sports anymore because it will consist of third and fourth rate male athletes competing against one another.
Women like to think that they understand men, but they don't understand men.
It's the idea that there is an inward psychology that is female, that's more important than any outward manifestation.
That's an interesting proposition and I going take time to think about it, but my first thought is, you described Lia Thomas' psychology in the next paragraph.
That's the male style of sports, where the saying is "winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.
How is the male stylethat not Lia Thomas' psychology? She has gone so far as to change her presented gender to be the fastest. The gender change came first? How do we know? For that matter, does she even know?
"If we protest it, we’re only hurting ourselves because we’re going to miss out on all that we’ve been working for."
If you protest it, you will miss out on an increasing number of trans swimmers who are going to put your efforts to shame.
Time to put an end to women's divisions in all sports. You want to compete in tennis, billiards, bowling, archery - hell, even chess - play against anybody and everybody else. You'll see "equality". But you're not going to like it, Missy.
Is it about the differences between men and women, boys and girls, or is it about the difference between male jocks and female ones? If a guy shows up at corporate headquarters wearing a dress, the other employees might just take it in stride and not mention it. Try that in a boys' high school or college locker room and it will get ugly. A girls' or women's team would be more restrained and adult and afraid to say anything about it.
It is inconceivable to me that serious women athletes in college and pro sports have not banded together to protect the integrity of their sports.
Young women athletes of today grew up in the Everyone Gets a Trophy Era. So, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they don't have a very fierce competitive urge to compete and win.
Many people, myself included, thought the jury in the Rittenhouse trial would succumb to social pressure and fear. They did not. The Smollett jury also did not. I believe we are at a flex point where standing up against this insanity will not ruin you but actually lionize you. The girls on the Penn State swim team may not be the ones to break this cultural fever but it is coming and very soon.
Boys are boys, girls are girls and everybody knows that. But we need a young boy to shout out, “These ninnies have no brains.”
I'm not a huge sports fan, but I have to work collegiate level women's sports like soccer and basketball and see plenty of competitiveness.
The reticence to go public with their concerns should be no surprise considering how many ways professional level men's sports figures bend over for "social justice" etc.
It just so happens that the trans crossover penalty lands on their side and they have the usual social, academic and career pressures to shut up. The college "men" would be the same if reversed.
This all is a baby step in the direction of how to handle trans-human sports.
Learn to code.
John McEnroe said that Serena Williams, the best ever woman tennis player, would land at around #700 in the men's rankings. He's always been a loudmouth, but does know a thing or two about tennis.
Ms. Williams' response was that it was not appropriate for McEnroe to voice such opinions because she was trying to have a baby at the time.
Not the Bee.
Not the Notthebee.
ABC news.
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/serena-williams-slams-john-mcenroes-controversial-ranking-comments/story?id=48300557
if you are trans you can compete with the men. Do so - or you are a cheat.
Yes, professional women's sports is done, any team with savvy coaches or management will be aiming to recruit men calling themselves women to gain a competitive edge, it's just a question of how long it takes before such men take up all the available spots.
It's really also the end of the feminist project in general, because more and more men, being the hyper-competitive types they are, will play the trans game to ruthlessly get ahead and score more diversity points with woke leadership than real women. It would not be shocking in 10 years to see lots of men in charge identifying as women as a consequence of a push to diversify from male leadership.
My bet is most women will cower before the empowered male bullies claiming they're women and cede the argument because there is no defense without first accepting the old-fashioned idea that men and women truly are inherently different in a way that no socialization, surgery, hormones, or desire can ever overcome.
Women's professional beach volleyball is hanging by a thread.
The people blaming either the coach or the actual females on the team are misguided. The NCAA allows this travesty, they have no choice but to accept it. If the coach refused a place in the team to Mr. Thomas, he would be fired and then be unemployable. If the girls openly criticized and shunned him, they would be called bigots and jeopardize their academic and professional careers. The NCAA should take the scientifically correct position that we have men and women’s sports because of the clearly different physiological abilities between the sexes, not because of which gender they identify with. Mr. Thomas should be ashamed of himself for “competing” against actual females, who he has an unfair physical advantage over, but instead he relishes his stolen victories and basks in the adulation of his bravery to come out as trans. If he were honorable, he’d come out as trans and still compete on the men’s team, where the competition would be fair, but he’s not. The NCAA should not allow this, but they’re cowards.
hHow "woman" do you ave to be? If a guy isn't doing well in a sport, can he just declare he's a woman for the duration of the season, or does he have to take irreversible steps?
Yeah, I know it's the latter now. But in how much time will it be the former. I'm old enough when feminists said that there should be no separate physical requirements for cops, firemen, soldiers. Solemn promise. Lasted about fourteen seconds.
Gay marriage...pfft. Homophobic paranoid, much? Adoption.....? Never.
So...if you can't do well on the tour for the PGA, do you get to switch to the LPGA without any, you know, difficulty?
Don't know how many young women are actually perf-philic, as opposed to knowing they should keep their fool mouths shut for fear of...cancellation at least.
Got a couple of athletic granddaughters. Not interested in seeing them on the bench while guys who can't make it with the guy teams take over.
Some years ago, Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert were the best women tennis players on the planet. They were beaten handily in a doubles match against Neil and Jeb Bush, a couple of good-but-not-great collegiate players.
Quite a story, if true. I'm having trouble finding it online.
I don't care about sports per se, but--
I really have to wonder who the audience for trans-competitors is. Most men--whatever their level of fandom in general--don't give a flying fuck about women's sports anyway, and why would real women want to watch other real women get beat? Way to stifle interest and respect with one pander.
On the one hand, the feminists are always saying how women are just as good as men. On the other hand, someone (feminists?) is pushing this story about the poor women athletes who are forced to compete with biological men and how unfair it is.
I don't know the solution but the result should certainly inform the idea of having biological women in combat roles in our military, because the other side is not going to cripple their military in this way and winning or losing a war can be an important thing.
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