Tag Archives: #Transgender

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Some people just can’t tell the difference between comic books and reality

I devoured the Conan the Barbarian books when I was a teenager, starting out with the Lancer Books twelve volume edition. Robert E Howard wrote his original books between 1930 and 1936, and L Sprague deCamp, Lin Carter and Bjorn Nyberg added to it. Published in the 1960s and 70s, the men were strong and brave, while the hero bedded an assortment of nubile, slim but nevertheless voluptuous — how does that work — ladies after slaying countless forms.

Conan was a character which simply could not be left alone, and many authors used Conan as a character, through several publishers, during the 1980s and 90s. The difference? While there were plenty of helpless ladies to be bedded, there were also warrior women, women who could kick ass just as well as any man.

I also read plenty of comic books. In the 1960s, the female superheroines tended to have what I’d call ‘distance powers,’ able to beat the bad guys, but from a distance, not from fisticuffs. Supergirl and Wonder Woman were obvious examples of the latter, while the Invisible Woman might have been able to trip someone unseen — especially before Stan Lee had her discover that she could also create invisible force fields — and the Wasp and Scarlett Witch and Jean Grey worked their wonders from range.

Gradually, the superheroines gained the ability to match, and beat, male villains hand-to-hand. And in the CW Supergirl series, Supergirl beat her cousin Superman in a fair fight.

Well, I have come to the conclusion that today’s American left grew up reading the same things I did, but they did more than read them; they swallowed them whole, and came out believing that women were the physical equal or men in strength, speed, quickness, size, and endurance. Every girl is Supergirl; ever woman is Wonder Woman! So, heck, it’s perfectly normal and reasonable to have males and females competing against each other, and it’s always fair, right? Continue reading →

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Follow the science! If someone was out to destroy transgender acceptance, what would he be doing differently?

I have previously asked if someone was out to destroy transgender acceptance, what would he be doing differently from what Will Thomas, the male swimmer for the University of Pennsylvania who claims to be a woman named ‘Lia’ has done?

Now we have this, from the New York Post:

Trans competitor beats 13-year-old girl in NYC women’s skateboarding contest

By Snejana Farberov | Monday, June 27, 2022 | 8:51 AM EDT | Updated: 9:32 AM EDT

A 29-year-old male beat 13-year-old Shiloh Catori in a skateboarding contest, and the left think that’s perfectly OK.

A 29-year-old transgender woman beat a 13-year-old girl to take home the top prize in a skateboarding contest in New York City, reigniting the debate over whether new inclusivity pushes create an unfair advantage in women’s sports.

As per our Stylebook, we do not change the direct quotes of others, but there is no such thing as a “transgender woman”; there is only a mutilated male.

Ricci Tres, from Los Angeles, who was born a man but now identifies as a woman, won the women’s division of the Boardr Open street skateboarding competition and a $500 prize, with 13-year-old Shiloh Catori, from Florida, coming in second and taking a $250 prize.

The First Street Journal endeavors to use the correct names for those who claim to be ‘transgender,’ but an internet search for “Ricci Tres'” real name failed to find it. He shall be referred to as “Mr Tres” in the parts of this article which are not direct quotes from others. [Updated: June 29, 2022: His name is actually Richard Batres.]

Four of the six finalists were under the age of 17, with the youngest being 10-year-old Juri Iikura, who came in fifth. At 29, Tres was the oldest contestant.

Tres is 838 in the Boardr Global Rankings, compared to Catori’s 133 ranking.

The transgender athlete’s victory sparked an outrage on social media among critics, who blasted Boardr Open for allowing a much older competitor assigned male at birth to face off against biological females — many of them more than half her age.

Sadly, the Post’s stylebook apparently uses the silliness of the ‘transgender’ agenda. People are not “assigned” a sex at birth; they are recognized as being what their sex actually is.

It was discovered a hundred years ago that the sex of humans and other mammals was determined by the XX (female) or XY (male) chromosomal pair, and that the sex of an offspring was determined by whether the sperm cell which fertilized the egg carried an X or a Y chromosome. Thus, sex was determined at conception, and at no other time. We used to chuckle at stories that King Henry VIII was angered by his first two wives because they gave birth to female rather than male babies, at least as far as the ones who survived infancy. With modern knowledge, we knew it was actually Henry, and not Catherine of Aragon or Anne Boleyn, who determined the sex of his children. Now, in the 21st century, political correctness demands we abandon scientific knowledge. The formulation “sex assigned at birth” is simply political propaganda to support transgenderism.

Skateboarder Taylor Silverman led the chorus of discontent, writing in an Instagram post: “Male wins women’s finals and money at Boardr Open NYC presented by DC today. My story is not unique in skateboarding.”

Silverman, who has been skateboarding for 11 years, previously complained on social media that she had lost to transgender rivals twice, including at the Redbull Cornerstone competition in May, when she missed out on $5,000 in prize money by coming in second.

“I deserved to place first, be acknowledged for my win, and get paid,” she wrote. “I reached out to Redbull and was ignored. I am sick of being bullied into silence.”

Silverman’s post from May 17 drew a mixed response, with some users fully supporting her stance, while others accusing her of being a sore loser, with one commenter writing: “lol or you could just … be better at skating & actually win the already fair contest?”

Mr Tres’ win is hardly something as big as Will Thomas’ victory in the NCAA nationals, but it’s simply one more piece of evidence that males are not the same as females, and in athletic contests in which size, speed, strength, quickness and endurance are factors, biological males will always have an advantage over females. Simple common sense — something apparently not quite as common as we like to think — has told us this all along, and the 50 year anniversary of Title IX, celebrated just four days ago, is being bitch-slapped by males claiming to be women competing against real women in sports. There’s some real irony that the American left are using ‘transgenderism’ to undermine the opportunities for real women.

I’ll ask it again: why would biological males who are convinced that they are really female, and who want other people to recognize them as women, undertake actions which prove just how different ‘transgender women’ are from real women?

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“So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” — John 8:7

Stacey Henley, from his Twitter biography.

I will admit it: I had never heard of Stacey Henley before. Mr Henley writes about electronic games, and those are simply of no interest to me. But now he’s telling us that if we choose to go to see Spider-Man: Lotus, we must be horrible, horrible raaaaacists.

Titled Spider-Man: Lotus, the movie was one of the most anticipated amateur movie projects. I say ‘was’, but in a lot of cases, it still is. The reason the movie has become so controversial is because the actor playing Spider-Man, Warden Wayne, has just been outed as having a history of using racial slurs. In particular, casual use of the N-word with an ‘a’, and occasional use with a hard R. He’s white.

What? Does that mean if Mr Wayne was black, it would be acceptable?

This was almost immediately followed by leaks that the movie’s director, Gavin J. Konop also had a history of racial and ableist remarks. This is not just the best boy and assistant grip (with apologies to all the hard working crews out there). This is the star and the director. You could not find two people who better represent the film. Knowing that the two most central people in the project are racists has obviously put a lot of people off from watching and supporting Spider-Man: Lotus. But predictably, a lot of people don’t care.

We do not know, of course, how many other people associated with the movie might hold views that Mr Henley would find objectional, or label racist, or sexist, of homophobic, or transphobic. Whatever all of the other actors, writers, producers, directors, cameramen and other techs, wardrobe people, and whatever might happen to be just isn’t published information. But Mr Henley wants to cancel them all!

That old selfish chestnut is being rolled back out – ‘lots of people work hard on this movie and I want to support them’. I call bull effluence, pal. You just want to watch the movie, and a little racism isn’t going to stop you. If that’s the case, just say that. Say ‘racism just isn’t a dealbreaker for me, I want to see Spider-Man’. We’d understand. It’s so rare to see Spider-Man in movies these days. It’s been, what? Five months since the last one left theatres? A lifetime.

A clue here: if Messrs Konop and Wayne can get ‘cancelled’ by this, other people will lose their jobs. The author either doesn’t realize that, or he doesn’t care; both are possible.

My good (electronic) friend, Robert Stacy McCain, noted that Ezra Miller, the actor who played the Flash in Justice League, has had roles in several other movies, including some big-budget films, and is not starring in The Flash, has run across some serious legal problems:

In June 2022, the Standing Rock Sioux tribal court issued a temporary order of protection against Miller on behalf of 18-year-old activist Tokata Iron Eyes. Chase Iron Eyes and Sara Jumping Eagle, Tokata’s parents, requested the court order due to Miller allegedly using “violence, intimidation, threat of violence, fear, paranoia, delusions, and drugs” to hold sway over their child. The relationship between Miller and Tokata Iron Eyes, which began in 2016 when Miller was 23 and Iron Eyes was 12, also included Iron Eyes flying to London in 2017 to visit Miller on the set of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

Iron Eyes also dropped out of school in 2021, allegedly to follow Miller. Iron Eyes’ parents also alleged in their documents that Miller had caused bruises on their child’s body and that Miller had manipulated their child to believe they are transgender. Tokata later responded by denying their parents’ allegations. As of June 10, 2022, law enforcement has been unable to locate Miller to serve them with the order. . . .

On June 16, 2022, a mother and her twelve-year-old child were granted a temporary harassment prevention order against Miller in Massachusetts, after the latter allegedly threatened the woman’s family and showed inappropriate behavior towards the child. According to the mother and child, Miller, who was originally visiting a neighbor, showed up to the family’s house unexpectedly while wearing a bulletproof vest and brandishing a gun before “pestering” the child by “uncomfortably” touching their hips.

Yeah, you start messin’ around with 12-year-olds, and even the greedy sleazebags in Hollywood might see this as a problem. You can picture the scene in the corporate offices at Warner Bros., with executives asking, “Wait a minute — we spent $200 million on a movie starring a guy with ‘they/them’ pronouns? And now he’s on the lam, accused of diddling 12-year-olds, two weeks before the movie’s supposed to hit theaters?”

Mr Miller came out in 2012 as, well, sexually odd. He stated that he identified neither as a male or a female, and that looking for love in all the wrong places meant there was no place off limits. Pretty serious stuff, when you consider the accusations that he had attempted to manipulate a 12-year-old to believe he was transgender.

Yet, despite Mr Henley’s attacks on the star and director of The Flash, I have yet to find anything by the author condemning Mr Miller.

Of course, transgenderism is Mr Henley’s real concern, and he attacked J K Rowling, creator of the Harry Potter world, because Miss Rowling, very much a hard left liberal, doesn’t seem to accept the quaint notion that girls can be boys and boys can be girls:

It’s the same excuse people use for supporting the upcoming Hogwarts Legacy game. JK Rowling, the single most influential person in the Harry Potter franchise, might have said some horrible things, but I really want to support Gary the junior level designer, so I have to support this game (with apologies to our hard working devs). Troy Leavitt? Never heard of him.

Why is it so important to the author? Because he claims to be a “transgender woman.” Of course, in accordance with The First Street Journal’s Stylebook, we refer to the author by the appropriate honorifics and pronouns. I have, as yet, been unable to determine Mr Henley’s birth name, but Stacey is a name used by both males and females, so Stacey Henley could actually be his birth name. Mr Henley was born a male, and a male he will always be, regardless of how many medications he takes, or under which surgical procedures he had gone.

So why hasn’t Mr Henley, at least as far as I could find, told us that we must boycott The Flash? After all, the accusations of sexually abusing or ‘grooming’ a 12-year-old are pretty serious, and Mr Miller does not seem to have put up much of a defense against them yet.

JK Rowling matters particularly because she is the acceptable face of transphobia. A few of her celebrity chums have declared for her in this nonsensical culture war, but none have come out with half the degree of erroneous and transphobic rhetoric as she has. A great number of middle-class media columnists seem to agree with her, and they have a significant platform themselves, but there are few other major cultural figures waiting in the wings to replace Rowling as the transphobe-in-chief. She is crucial to the movement.

For a while, it seemed as though she was being locked out of her own legacy. She was not present for the Harry Potter reunion, and again, the developers have deliberately and explicitly distanced themselves from her. However, the latest trailer for Fantastic Beasts promotes itself under her name, fluttering across the screen in huge letters. It’s easy to convince ourselves that she’s a pariah, that she is now divorced from the world she created, but she’s not. She seems to be heading in that direction, but as long as you all support Harry Potter regardless of how hateful and deliberately malicious JK Rowling’s statements become, you’re saying trans people just don’t matter as much as fictional wizards. A boycott got rid of Papa John after his repeated racial slurs, but Papa John’s as a business still exists. There doesn’t seem to have been any serious attempt to remove JK Rowling from the idea of Harry Potter, lest it mean missing out on the next instalment of a series that ended its golden age a decade ago.

I guess that if you buy a pizza from Papa John’s, you’re racist!

I confess: I’ve read all of the original Harry Potter books. I thought it was silly when Miss Rowling said, many years later, that Albus Dumbledore was homosexual, because there was none of that in the books. And I’ve seen Aquaman, in which Amber Heard, the former Mrs Johnny Depp, stars as Mera, because I don’t care, one way or the other, about the ridiculous Johnny Depp/Amber Heard lawsuits. Some people blame the former Mrs Depp, and some people blame her ex-husband, but I really don’t give a darn about the claims and counter-claims of two Hollywood celebrities. When Aquaman 2 comes out, I’ll probably see that, too, though at home, when it comes out on one of the channels I get.[1]I’m about ¾ deaf, and there are certain consonants I just don’t hear, so seeing movies in the theater doesn’t work for me. At home, I have closed captioning available.

I also haven’t boycotted Jane Fonda’s movies, or Sean Penn’s, though, let’s face it, Mr Penn’s only great character was Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and he’s been going downhill since then. I just don’t care about whatever sins the actors may have committed. Jesus said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

That’s not hypocrisy on my part; that’s me telling you what is, and is not, important to me.

But for Mr Henley, to not tell us to avoid Mr Miller’s The Flash movie, yeah, that’s hypocritical, and it always will be.

References

References
↑1 I’m about ¾ deaf, and there are certain consonants I just don’t hear, so seeing movies in the theater doesn’t work for me. At home, I have closed captioning available.
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You will comply, or we’ll starve your children!

Stacy Dean, from her government biography page.

Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services Deputy Under Secretary of Agriculture Stacy Dean said, “Whether you are grocery shopping, standing in line at the school cafeteria, or picking up food from a food bank, you should be able to do so without fear of discrimination. No one should be denied access to nutritious food simply because of who they are or how they identify.” From that statement, who would ever think that he would threaten to withhold Food and Nutrition Service funds as punishment for those who Do Not Comply? Continue reading →

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But the horse identified as a mare! Apparently, the rules are the same for horses and a horse's ass.

Shades of William Thomas, the male University of Pennsylvania swimmer who identified as a female, calling himself “Lia”!

Shoes from Herbager, French Derby winner, embedded in concrete along Main Street in Paris, Kentucky. Photo by D R Pico. Click to enlarge.

I am slightly familiar with Blood Horse magazine only because a friend of my mother’s worked there in the 1970s. This is the kind of publication that you’ll see around horse farms. In Paris, Kentucky, north of Lexington, with a lot of thoroughbred farms along Paris Pike between the two cities, you’ll see horseshoes of famous race horses embedded in concrete along the sidewalks.

Suit Alleges Stakes-Winning Broodmare Prospect is Male

Kept True competed against females in 14 races and won over $300,000.

By Dick Downey | Tuesday, May 24, 2022 | 6:26 PM EDT

A New York-bred stakes winner that sold for $150,000 at Keeneland as a broodmare prospect is actually a male, according to a lawsuit pending in Fayette Circuit Court in Lexington. Continue reading →

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The freedom to tell the truth Swimmer had to wait until she exhausted her eligibility before she spoke out

When I saw the article referenced below, I guessed that University of Kentucky women’s swim team member Riley Gaines was a senior, and her UK biography page confirmed that.

    Swimmer who tied with Lia Thomas says female athletes ‘not OK’ with trajectory of women’s sports

    by Cameron Jenkins | Friday, April 1, 2022 | 10:28 AM EDT

    A University of Kentucky swimmer who tied in fifth place with Lia Thomas during the NCAA swimming championships’ 200-yard freestyle claimed that many female athletes are “not OK” with the trajectory of women’s sports.

The First Street Journal’s Stylebook specifies that we always refer to the ‘transgendered’ by their real names, the names given at birth, and not the made up ones they use. Further, we always apply the honorifics and pronouns appropriate to their biological sex. However, we do not change the direct quotes of others.

    “The majority of us female athletes, or females in general, really, are not OK with this, and they’re not OK with the trajectory of this and how this is going and how it could end up in a few years,” Riley Gaines told Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) during an interview on her podcast “Unmuted with Marsha.”

    Gaines’s comments refer to NCAA rules that allow transgender women to compete in women’s competitive sports, Fox News noted.

    Thomas last month became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division 1 national championship in any sport when she finished first in the 500-yard freestyle race — a moment that many conservatives have criticized as unfair.

    Gaines described to Blackburn during the podcast the emotions she felt when she realized she had tied in the 200-yard freestyle with Thomas.

    “I touched the wall and saw there was a five by my name indicating that I got fifth … I also looked up, and I saw the number five by Lia’s name and so, in that moment, I realized we tied,” Gaines said. “It was kind of like a flood of emotions. I was extremely happy for the girls above me who conquered what was seemingly impossible by beating Lia.”

I have previously noted my belief that Will Thomas deliberately threw his last couple of races, after he had won the women’s 500-yard freestyle championship, but there’s no way I could prove that.

Miss Gaines noted that, in her tie for fifth in the 200-yard race, the organizers had only one fifth-place award, which she understood. The organizers decided, however, that they’d give the award to Mr Thomas, and send Miss Gaines’ her award in the mail. The organizers could have brought Miss Gaines and Mr Thomas out together, holding aloft the single fifth-place trophy together, but putting 6’3″ Will Thomas and 5’5″ Riley Gaines side-by-side would have resulted in a photograph which just further pointed out the differences between Mr Thomas and female athletes.

I might not have paid any attention to this one, but the University of Kentucky is my alma mater. Naturally, I did a site search of the Lexington Herald-Leader’s website for Riley Gaines, and that newspaper, which heavily covers UK athletics, had nothing on Miss Gaines’ comments[1]As of 5:18 PM EDT on Saturday, April 2, 2022.. I was not surprised.

The Kentucky Kernel, UK’s independent student newspaper, did cover the story.[2]Full disclosure: I wrote for the Kernel while in graduate school, 1980-1982.

Why did I guess that Miss Gaines was a senior? Because her UK career is over; she’s exhausted her eligibility, so she can’t get kicked off the team, can’t lose her athletic scholarship. While she’s a very good swimmer, and her first-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle helped UK to its first Southeastern Conference championship in 2021, she’s not a serious contender for a spot on the Olympic team. Hailing from Gallatin, Tennessee, her future career prospects in that conservative state are not likely to be seriously damaged by her saying, in public, what so many other female swimmers have said anonymously.

References

References
↑1 As of 5:18 PM EDT on Saturday, April 2, 2022.
↑2 Full disclosure: I wrote for the Kernel while in graduate school, 1980-1982.
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The fruits of ‘Lia’ Thomas’ labors If someone was out to destroy transgender acceptance, what would he be doing differently?

Getty Images. Click to enlarge.

I have asked, many times, what Will Thomas, who now calls himself ‘Lia’, is getting from his record-breaking performances on the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s swimming team. Yes, he’s piling up victories and records, but everyone will recognize that not only should those records have an asterisk on them, he is doing the one thing he really ought not to want to do, demonstrating the real differences between himself and real women.

Now we have this bill in the Kentucky General Assembly, and the obvious question becomes: would the impetus for this legislation, and similar legislation in other states, have been less were not Mr Thomas doing what he has been doing? I have asked before: If someone was out to destroy transgender acceptance, what would he be doing differently?

‘We’re going to get sued.’ KY bill banning transgender girls from girls sports moves forward

By Valarie Honeycutt Spears | Wednesday, March 9, 2022 | 6:34 PM EST

With a Lexington Republican lawmaker among those in opposition, a Republican bill prohibiting transgender girls from competing in girls sports at the post-secondary, middle and high school levels moved ahead Wednesday.

Senate Bill 83, approved by the House Education Committee with a 15-5 vote, requires the Kentucky Board of Education and the Kentucky High School Athletic Association to establish that an athletic activity or sport designated as “girls” shall not be open to members of the male sex.

“Ninety-six percent chance we’re going to get sued when we pass this,” said state Rep. Killian Timoney, R-Lexington, who voted against the bill. “I’m not sure I feel like spending money on lawsuits.”

Under the bill, the sex of the student shall be determined by the biological sex indicated on the student’s certified birth certificate issued at the time of birth or adoption, Sen. Robby Mills, R-Henderson, the bill’s sponsor, said.

The proposed legislation does not prohibit girls who think they’re boys from participating in boys’ sports, because there are no unfair advantages there.

Further down:

Critics of the legislation have said they haven’t heard of examples of student-athletes harmed by the inclusion of transgender classmates.

There’s more at the original, but if critics say they haven’t heard examples of girls being harmed, then they haven’t been paying attention; the stories about Mr Thomas have been all over the news, and if Mr Thomas competes for an Ivy League school, and the girls who have been harmed have been in Pennsylvania and the northeast, that doesn’t mean it can’t happen in the Bluegrass State.

People have been cowed into silence, or anonymity, for the very reasonable fear of losing scholarships or future job opportunities:

Penn’s women’s team roster lists 41 members. The 16 teammates did not identify themselves in the letter, stating that they “have been told that if we spoke out against her inclusion into women’s competitions, that we would be removed from the team or that we would never get a job offer.”

UPenn Women’s Swim Team, via Instagram. It isn’t difficult to pick out the one man male in a women’s bikini top. Click to enlarge.

Mr Thomas is an extreme example: he’s 6’3″ tall, and was a competitive athlete on Penn’s men’s swimming team, and if not a consistent winner, he nevertheless scored a few victories in Ivy league competition. He went through male puberty, and was fully developed as a male before he succumbed to his mental illness began his testosterone suppression therapy. Mr Thomas went from being ranked “#462 as a male to #1 as a female”.

At least one women’s swim team member has complained that Mr Thomas is still a physically intact male and thinks little of parading around the locker room with his male genitalia exposed.

It is at least arguable that a boy who thought he was a girl and began ‘transitioning’ prior to puberty — something which qualifies as child abuse as far as I am concerned, and ought to be illegal — would have few physical advantages over real girls, and such shouldn’t make a difference on, say, a girls’ soccer team. In a case like that, there wouldn’t be too much opposition on the local level, and the local level is where such matters would be handled . . . were it not for Will Thomas and the legislation he has at least aided in getting passed, if not completely inspired it.

If someone suffers from “gender dysphoria,” it’s really none of my business. If Joe wants to call himself Jane, it’s no skin off my nose, until the point at which he wants to use the power of the state to require me to call him Jane. But Mr Thomas has forced the issue, forced his mental illness ‘transition’ on everybody — with the complicity of Penn, Ivy League, and NCAA officials — and thus he has accomplished what I would have thought the ‘transgender’ community would not have wanted, to point out that ‘transgender women’ really are not real women.

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If someone was out to destroy transgender acceptance, what would he be doing differently?

We have covered the University of Pennsylvania’s transgender swimmer several times, and the question has always occurred to me: if ‘Lia’ Thomas really, really, really wants to be accepted as a woman, why engage in activities which prove him so radically different from real women?

Lia Thomas wins second Ivy League title with record-setting 200m swim

By Ryan Glasspiegel | Friday, February 18, 2022 | 8:30 PM EST

Getty Images. Click to enlarge.

Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer for University of Pennsylvania, won her second Ivy League title this week with a record-setting effort.

Friday night, Thomas won the conference’s 200-meter freestyle competition with a time of 1:43.12, beating second-place Samantha Shelton by over 2.5 seconds.

Thomas’ finish set a new record at Harvard’s Blodgett Pool, besting the previous mark of 1:43.78, and comes a day after she won the Ivy League’s 500-meter freestyle. Her time of 4:37.32 in Thursday’s event was also a Blodgett Pool record.

Thomas swam for three years at Penn as a male, before transitioning to female.

There’s more at the original.

Will Thomas was, according to the University of Pennsylvania’s athletic department’s swimming and diving 2018-19 team roster, a sophomore member of the men’s team. He was “Second-team All-Ivy in the 500 free, 1,000 free, and 1,650 free after reaching the ‘A’ final of the Ivy League Championships and finishing second overall in each of the events.” The 2019-20 roster lists him as Lia Thomas, and states that he “Competed in four of Penn’s eight regular season events (as a male, and) won the 500 free against Villanova (Nov. 15).” The 2017-18 roster notes that he was “Ivy League Championships qualifier in 500 free (A final), 1000 free (A final), 1650 free (A final).”

Penn, an Ivy League school, erased Mr Thomas portrait from those rosters. For the 2021-22 season, he is now listed as Lia Thomas on the roster, complete with his portrait after ‘transitioning’. His individual biography page no longer lists his top times, or his past accomplishments on the men’s team, and simply notes that “All 2020-21 Ivy League winter sports were canceled on November 12 due to a nationwide outbreak of coronavirus COVID-19.”

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain: Exposing Gender, Inc.

Bruce Jenner, the 1976 Olympic Decathalon winner who thinks that he’s a woman now, said:

I’ve said from the beginning, biological boys should not be playing in women’s sports. We need to protect women’s sports.

Obviously this is about Lia Thomas who has brought a lot of attention to this issue. First of all, I respect her decision to live her life authentically. 100 percent. But, that also comes with responsibility and some integrity. I don’t know why she’s doing this. For two reasons: 1. It’s not good for the trans community. We have a lot of issues in the trans community that are very difficult and very challenging. We have a suicide rate that’s nine times higher than the general public.

Her hands are bigger. She can swim faster. That’s a known. All of this is woke world that we’re living in right now is not working. I feel sorry for the other athletes that are out there, especially at Penn or anyone she’s competing against, because in the woke world you have to say, ‘Oh my gosh, this is great.’ No it’s not.

I’ve asked it before: how does Mr Thomas, who grew up male, who competed athletically with men, doing well and occasionally winning at the collegiate level, justify in his own mind beating a bunch of real girls? How does Mr Thomas, in his tremendous concern to be accepted as a woman and not a male, justify competing in events which only serve to point out the differences between him and biological women? And now a third question has come to my mind: if someone was actively trying to sabotage the concept that #TransgenderWomenAreWomen, what would he be doing differently from what Mr Thomas is doing right now?

In the Bluegrass State, the General Assembly is working on legislation which would ban biological boys from competing as girls in sports, and other states have been doing similar things. Naturally, what my best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal gave activists OpEd space to complain about the bill. These legislative attempts might still exist had the world never heard of ‘Lia’ Thomas, but it is unquestionable that his actions have increased the pressure for them.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, which has been beating the drum for the acceptance of Mr Thomas as a legitimate women’s sports contender, reported on his latest victory:

Penn’s Lia Thomas wins third title, breaks another pool record in final day of Ivy swim championship

Penn secured itself as the top freestyle team in the league, as just before Thomas’ feat, junior teammate Catherine Buroker also notched a second Ivy League title in the 1,650-yard freestyle.

by Ellie Rushing | Saturday, February 19, 2022 | 8:41 PM EST

BOSTON ― For the third night in a row, University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas stood atop the medal stand and was named an Ivy League champion.

And in as many days, she broke a third Harvard University Blodgett Pool record, and a second Ivy League meet record in a thrilling 100-yard freestyle race.

It was the closing day of the Ivy League championship, and Thomas was seeded second in the 100 freestyle to Yale University’s Iszac Henig. In the preliminaries, Henig beat Thomas by about a second and established a Blodgett pool record.

Further down:

That performance including Penn securing itself — by far — as the top freestyle team in the Ivy League.

“There’s no secret, it’s just work,” (junior Catherine Buroker) said of that success.

Well, hard work, and having a biological male compete against real women, anyway.

That’s the part which will never go away: Yes, the University of Pennsylvania won the Ivy league Championship in women’s swimming, but everyone will know that Penn’s team might not have done so were Mr Thomas not competing, and many will assume that Penn just would not have won without him competing. As sixteen members of the team noted, in an unsigned letter, Mr Thomas went from being ranked “#462 as a male to #1 as a female”.

Was there ever any more convincing evidence that Mr Thomas is simply different from real women, in ways that actually matter when it comes to competitive sport?

What Will Thomas, in his selfishness, has done is to bring Penn a championship that will forever be questionable in people’s minds, and to convince people who were on the fence about transgender participation in women’s sports that no, it just isn’t fair. What more damage could he have done if he had consciously tried?

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The truth shall set you free . . . from your job

UPenn Women’s Swim Team, via Instagram. It isn’t difficult to pick out the one man male in a women’s bikini top. Click to enlarge.

The First Street Journal has previously published five articles on Will Thomas, the male swimmer who claims to be female and swims for the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s team under the name ‘Lia’ Thomas. With a lot of different stories published in the Washington Examiner, New York Post, and OutKick, about teammates critical of his participation on the team, I cautioned, “I have to wonder: has it always been the same (anonymous) teammate who has been the source for these stories? This has sort of jumped out at me as I have read these stories.”

Well, that question has been answered, surprisingly enough, in The Philadelphia Inquirer:

    16 Penn swimmers send letter saying teammate Lia Thomas has an unfair advantage

    The players’ names are not signed on the letter, but it appears to reveal a division in the team less than two weeks away from the Ivy League championship meet.

    by Ellie Rushing | Friday, February 4, 2022

    Sixteen members of the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s swim team have sent a letter to school and Ivy League officials speaking out against transgender teammate Lia Thomas’ participation in the upcoming championship meets. They also ask the university and league to not take legal action against the NCAA if it adopts a policy barring Thomas’ eligibility.

    The letter — penned by Nancy Hogshead-Makar, former Olympic swimmer and CEO of Champion Women, on behalf of 16 unnamed Penn swimmers and their families — appears to reveal a division in the team less than two weeks away from the Ivy League championship meet.

    The players question the fairness of Thomas’ participation, and say that she is taking “competitive opportunities” away from other members of the team.

    Thomas is a 22-year-old transgender woman who holds the fastest times of any female college swimmer in two events this season. She has been on gender hormone therapy for more than two years and has followed all NCAA eligibility requirements. Her times make her a favorite for the NCAA championship in March.

There’s more at the Inquirer original. Note that while our Stylebook specifies that the ‘transgendered’ will be referred to by their birth names and the pronouns appropriate to their biological sex, the Inquirer, and most of the credentialed media have chosen to refer to the ‘transgendered’ by their assumed names and preferred pronouns. We do not alter the direct quotations of others.

What we are seeing here is more than just the idea that ‘transgendered’ athletes are the sex they claim to be, rather than the sex they actually are, but the self-censorship of people who fear the consequences of doing something radical like telling the truth. The Inquirer reported, three days earlier, that “several” team members issued a letter of support for Mr Thomas; the number of teammates who signed the letter was not revealed:

    Members of the Penn women’s swimming and diving team have issued a statement in support of their transgender teammate, Lia Thomas.

    “We want to express our full support for Lia in her transition,” the statement said. “We value her as a person, teammate, and friend. The sentiments put forward by an anonymous member of our team are not representative of the feelings, values, and opinions of the entire Penn team, composed of 39 women with diverse backgrounds.”

    This is the first official public message of support for Thomas from the Penn women’s swim team. An anonymous member of the team had previously criticized Thomas and the university’s decision to allow her to swim to the Washington Examiner, the Daily Mail, and Fox News.

    Tuesday’s statement was not signed, but a Penn representative told ESPN that it was from “several” swimmers.

There’s more at the original, but one thing is obvious: releasing the names of the “several” team members who signed the letter supporting Mr Thomas also reveals which teammates did not sign the letter. The Washington Post reported:

    A Penn spokesman told ESPN that Tuesday’s statement was sent on behalf of “several” Quakers swimmers. On Thursday, the parent of a Penn swimmer, who did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation against their daughter, said in a telephone interview that they estimated the letter supporting Thomas was sent on behalf of only “two or three” swimmers.

Back to the first article cited:

    “We fully support Lia Thomas in her decision to affirm her gender identity and to transition from a man to a woman. Lia has every right to live her life authentically,” the letter reads.

    “However, we also recognize that when it comes to sports competition, that the biology of sex is a separate issue from someone’s gender identity. Biologically, Lia holds an unfair advantage over competition in the women’s category, as evidenced by her rankings that have bounced from #462 as a male to #1 as a female. If she were to be eligible to compete against us, she could now break Penn, Ivy, and NCAA Women’s Swimming records; feats she could never have done as a male athlete,” they wrote.

Oddly enough, I have been unable to find a link to the text of the original letter. But here’s the money line:

    Penn’s women’s team roster lists 41 members. The 16 teammates did not identify themselves in the letter, stating that they “have been told that if we spoke out against her inclusion into women’s competitions, that we would be removed from the team or that we would never get a job offer.”

In other words, sit down and shut up, or you’ll be punished for speaking out.

This is the tyranny of political correctness: if those sixteen teammates, at an Ivy League school, identify themselves, they’ll be punished. Though the letter does not say so, as far as I know, their grades could suffer as liberal professors might mark them down. Some of the slights that the left give to those who just aren’t #woke[1]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading enough to think that girls can be boys and boys can be girls aren’t just slights, but career-trashers. Remember: the #woke pushed liberal columnist Bari Weiss out at The New York Times and politically liberal Stan Wischnowski out as executive editor at the Inquirer, because they just weren’t #woke enough.

Me? I’m retired, and have no career from which to be fired, so I can do something really radical like tell the truth.

I’ve yet to see it mentioned anywhere else, but when you have part of the team supporting Will Thomas and another part, at least 16 teammates out to 41, or 39%, opposed, Mr Thomas has become a locker room cancer. At least some of the team considered boycotting a January 8, 2022, meet against Dartmouth, but eventually decided against it. At least one team member has complained that Mr Thomas still has male genitalia and this is causing stress for some of the team.

If Will Thomas wants to claim he’s a woman, that’s his business. But when institutions like the University of Pennsylvania start enforcing his delusions, when the NCAA allows his beliefs to determine his athletic status, it starts to become other people’s business, as he is being allowed to exercise a competitive advantage over biological women.

References

References
↑1 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.
By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.