Willy Thomas gets snubbed (finally).
And I use the incident to recap a few recent ideas I've written about.
William Thomas (who goes by “Lia”) rose to fame and infamy by competing in the women’s swimming team for the University of Pennsylvania in the early 2000s. He started on Penn’s men’s team in 2017, but switched because — well, because they let him.
Predictably, he started smashing women’s records and winning race after race, including winning an NCAA Division I title in the sport — the women’s sport.
Along the way, many people complained, including members of the team she was on, who didn’t appreciate being gas-lit into pretending that he is a woman, or being beaten by a man in a sport designated for women.
They also didn’t appreciate that he was allowed into their locker room to strip down in front of them, flashing his fully male body to them while ogling their bodies.
You can see why all that might piss a few girls off — and their fathers.
But nobody in an official capacity did anything except embrace the horrific farce, and many of us just shook our heads and wondered what the hell was wrong with these people.
Well, finally, somebody in an official capacity has said, “No”, to William. World Aquatics, the governing body of the sport of swimming, has voted to restrict transgender athletes from competing in elite women’s aquatics competitions.
Well, it's never too late to do the right thing, I suppose.
The issue is timely, because Thomas wants to compete in the 2024 Olympics in women’s swimming and this ruling will prevent that. He sued the organization over the matter, and the suit was dismissed. Good news, but the dismissal was based on a lack of standing rather than a definitive smackdown.
So, why bring this up? Well, for one, to highlight that our culture separated sport into men’s and women’s categories for very good reasons, and we shouldn’t forget them.
Also, to allow me to point back to an article I wrote a while back, underscoring the importance of concepts like “man” and “woman”, and the dangers of pretending those distinctions don’t exist.
Perhaps I missed it, but I didn’t see a hurricane of wailing and name-calling by left-leaning “news” outlets. A few muted squawks, but far less than the hail of condemnation I’m sure we would have heard just a couple years ago.
It reminded me a little about how neocons just slowly stopped talking about the 2003 Iraq War in glowing terms. Their support just… faded away. It’s a sign that people can wake up from their delusions, but that they usually won’t do so in an honest, vocal way.
They will just kinda stop talking about it.
So it’s good that an “adult in the room” has finally stepped up to combat this trans-lunacy, at least a little bit. It’s the correct response, a simple, “No.”
As I’ve written about before, the left has gotten a little nuts (perhaps you’ve noticed?) over the last decade or so, and a harsh (and unwelcome) backlash from the right is to be expected.
Some of it has begun. Louisiana just passed a law to require classrooms to display the Ten Commandments. I’m not in favor of this move.
Not only do I favor the “separation” of church and state, I favor the complete separation of education and state. Keep the filthy government out of the crucially important field of education.
So, I don’t support Louisiana’s move here, but I also don’t blame them a bit. The left has shoved their own version of religion — woke, identarian, gay, trans, leftist ideology — all over the public schools. It’s not insane for conservatives to push back a little.
In fact, this response is rather tame. I fear a response that is much more theocratic.
The solution to this particular conflict is to abolish government schools altogether. Let parents pick the kind of education they prefer. Nobody should be able to force their ideology into the minds of other people’s kids.
The very welcome school choice movement that is blossoming now should help move us in that direction. Some libertarians disagree. They’re wrong. I explain why here.
Thomas getting snubbed at the Olympics, along with the muted reaction by the left, reminds me of how surprisingly “unwoke” the 2024 Academy Awards were, as I wrote about at the time.
Perhaps this is another sign that “peak woke” is behind us now.
Maybe we survived it? One can hope.
Naturally,
Adam
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Oh from your lips…. I hope and pray that this is all going to start fading away. I’d love to spend my time on something else!