Noticeably quiet
ESPN reports on Lia Thomas’s “win”:
Thomas, who is a transgender woman, touched the wall in 4 minutes, 33.24 seconds in the 500-yard freestyle on Thursday night to become the first known transgender athlete to win a Division I national championship in any sport.
Yes but the issue isn’t “transgender” but man playing in women’s sport. We weren’t waiting eagerly for the first male athlete to win a woman’s national championship. We don’t see that as a breakthrough, or as a good thing in any way. We see it as cheating. We see it as brazen theft of a woman’s win and a woman’s spot in the race. We’re not impressed, we’re disgusted.
Thomas finished 1.75 seconds ahead of second-place Emma Weyant, of Virginia. Her time was a career best and a little more than 9 seconds off of Katie Ledecky’s 4:24.06 record.
The race began with the crowd cheering for each of the swimmers, but fans were noticeably quiet for Thomas’ introduction. Save Women’s Sports founder Beth Stelzer draped a vinyl banner with the organization’s phrase over the railing.
…
As she stood on the podium with her trophy, she flashed a peace sign, just as she did for her four Ivy League championships. And once again, the crowd was noticeably quiet as she was announced as the champion.
Probably because the crowd wasn’t impressed by such obvious cheating. They could see his shoulders.
“It’s a symbol of Lia’s resilience,” Schuyler Bailar, the first known transgender man to compete on a Division I men’s team while at Harvard, told ESPN. “The fact that she’s able to show up here, despite protesters outside, people shouting and booing her, I think it’s a testament to her resiliency. And it’s also a symbol that we can both be who we are and do what we love.”
No, it’s a testament to his brazen determination to cheat. He could still do what he loves, he could go right on swimming, he doesn’t have to swim against women.
It sucks for the particular women affected by it, but I always figured we’d have to go through through this phase before things were set right again. Now people are seeing what a mistake this is and how unpopular it is. The tide may be starting to turn.
Some are, but others are digging in. I wish I could be confident that any tide is turning.
Also it’s maddening to have to “go through” anything to stop ignoring the obvious. It’s OBVIOUS that men shouldn’t be competing in women’s sports.
As ever, the language attempts to bury the real issue. “First transgender athlete” has the most obvious benefit (for the TA cause) of removing sex from the event, but also claimed gender identity, as if this might equally have happened with a trans man in men’s sports. It is at this point that any such activist reading this (Silentbob, do you still hateread here?) will rush to find an example of a trans man claiming trophies in men’s sports. Examples will be difficult to find, for the exact reason the article hides Lia’s sex: the disparity only goes one way, which is why women’s sports need to be protected in the first place.
That’s the silence of those who have figured out this is a scam. Expect more of it as Thomas works his way up the competition ladder. He’s well within reach of the olympics now.
It’s almost a pity Russia won’t be able to field a team, because, given Russia’s history of cheating, steroid abuse, etc., I could imagine them fielding an entire team of ripped studs saying “Da, da, I am voman.”
Thomas will peak millions in the olympics.
My bet is that it is all this ‘transgender woman’ bullshit a fiendish plot hatched in the Vatican and seeking revenge for the outrage of ‘Pope Joan’ (Ioannes Anglicus, 855–857). This development apparently resulted in the Holy Institution of the ritual verification that the incumbent pope was posessed of the correct genitalia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Joan
*These days, a Portaloo could be installed up near the altar in St Peter’s, for the purpose of this testicular verification; to be carried out by a cardinal positioned in place of its normal dunny can.
RULE: women are not allowed to become popes. The same test could be applied to any ‘transgender’ athlete claiming a right to win prizes intended for women only,
When you look at the way the rhetoric works, it follows the same structure as what you are from malignant abusers. (Emotional blackmail, escalating demands to prove devotion, thought & emotion requirements, catastrophizing any failure, etc.) It unfortunately takes a lot for people to break free of abusers’ control.
As what you see? get?
Nullius in Verba,
Indeed. But, as painful as it is to rip oneself away from a malignant narcissist — and how even more painful it is to remain steadfast once the abruption has been achieved, over the course of months or years that healing takes — it is at least *possible* to do this, when you find yourself no longer able to operate under such a person’s influence.
When you feel you cannot escape an abusive personal situation, your only two options are to keep capitulating or to eventually make a stand, both of which have much higher risks than potential rewards. Once a relationship becomes so toxic and harmful to you that the very thought of continuing the way things are is a violent affront to your dignity, you must do violence, either to yourself or to the other person…and, if things have gotten bad indeed, this violence needn’t be limited to the more abstract metaphorical kinds so beloved of the young today.
In these terrible personal situations, when violence becomes the only real option, the downside is almost always the end of your life in one form or another. Many if not most female murderers, and a fair number of male ones, will spend the rest of their lives in prison because they saw no other way to end their personal hells than to murder the source of their misery. Many abuse victims also become murder victims after trying to confront their abusers, or even after unsuccessfully leaving.
What concerns me is that this gender cult (and the broader theology of oppression and privilege of which it is the exemplar of most concern to this blog) is already everywhere, and growing more pernicious by the day. There doesn’t seem to be any escaping it, and no accommodation other than total capitulation will be tolerated for very long. The implications of this are troubling, to say the least.
Here’s an idea.
A whole group of people should go to each of Thomas’s meets dressed as Napoleon, all demanding to be addressed as “Your Majesty” and that they all be seated in the Emperor’s Box for the event. They could, each and all, identify themselves as Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French. A special press representative could accompany the Band of Bonapartes, explaining how each of them identifies as the Emperor, and that this true, sincere identification clearly overrides trivial material details such as the fact that the supposedly “real” Napoleon is dead. (Without an identity, that first guy’s just a corpse anyhow.) It can be explained how each Emperor has a deep-seated understanding and lived experience as Napoleon, and that to to deny them their rights was a hateful, Anglo-inspired, Francophobic plot. At the end of each swim, they go to Thomas en mass and congratulate him on the fine work he’s doing for everyone who “identifies as”. They could have photos taken together. It would be so warm and touching. I’m fighting back tears just thinking about it.
Finding a pair of Furries who identify as the Emperor’s horse Marengo would be a nice touch. (They could wear a saddle blanket, stitched in thread of gold with the slogan “Panto Horses are Real Horses.”)
Of course the whole “Lia” Thomas situation is a scandal, travesty and tragedy all rolled into one. It is causing real harm to women. I think Thomas himself is pretty much a lost cause. He’s come so far already that it’s unlikely that he’s going to see suddenly that he is in the wrong. Women aren’t going to back down: they’re becoming more vocal and organized. More of the unaware public are being peaked by this ongoing, unfolding conspiracy to steal opportunities and awards from women. I think more hope lies in shaming and embarrassing the institutions and authorities which have allowed this to happen, and those which are going along with it. The question is how far will they go to protect the obvious lying and cheating? How obviously dishonest and complicit do they want to be seen to be? How much stomach for this do they really have? I say we should put them to the test and find out.
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