ESPN Marks (or Mocks) Women’s History Month by Celebrating Transgendered Athlete
[guest post by JVW]
The painfully-woke sports network apparently ran a segment on Lia Thomas, last-year’s cause célèbre:
ESPN recognized Lia Thomas in a TV special dedicated to Women’s History Month, sparking outrage from female competitors who swam against the transgender-identifying man from the University of Pennsylvania.
The segment honored Thomas for being the first transgender athlete to win a NCAA Division I championship title by winning the 500 freestyle race.
“Thomas made her debut as a member of the women’s team in December 2021,” the network said in a glowing highlight, complete with uplifting instrumental music, of the student’s collegiate swimming career. Thomas was on the men’s team until sophomore year, after which he began transitioning.
Riley Gaines, the former University of Kentucky All-American swimmer who is now a spokeswoman for the Independent Women’s Forum, is none too pleased:
Lia Thomas is not a brave, courageous woman who EARNED a national title. He is an arrogant, cheat who STOLE a national title from a hardworking, deserving woman. The @ncaa is responsible.
If I was a woman working at ESPN, I would walk out. You're spineless @espn #boycottESPN https://t.co/DF3n5RWsmV
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) March 26, 2023
I have a great deal of sympathy for the position of Ms. Gaines on this issue, but I do wish she could be a little more compassionate, or at least eschew some of the more inflammatory language. But I have nothing but contempt for ESPN, who clearly knew this would be a controversial move but seems to either revel in the notoriety or else to be so dedicated to the trans ideology that they are willing to alienate a strong portion of their user base.
I assume that the NCAA will follow the lead of World Athletics, which announced last week that henceforth all trans athletes who reached puberty as males but have since decided to live as women will no longer be eligible for women’s competition, though in the past the corrupt and feckless NCAA has been happy to mount the trans sports bandwagon. Trans advocates have at best provided hasty and incomplete research into the issue, and at worst they have outright lied about the advantages which trans athletes have over female competitors. The latest kerfuffle with NPR provides a perfect lesson in how trans ideology is prioritized over basic science in the progressive eschaton. I have for the past three years argued that we should treat transgendered people with dignity and understanding, but that we should not be succumbing to their empire of lies. I continue to stand by that assessment.
– JVW
Aaaargh! I meant to queue this post up for tomorrow morning. But I accidentally published it now. Well, have at it anyway.
JVW (b91373) — 3/27/2023 @ 1:56 pmHailie deegan races in nascar against men. When she won her 3 races she was asked if she was a transsexual! Girls and women like katie hettinger who is 15 are accused of being transsexuals, lesbians and other slanders bccause they race and win against men!
asset (eb6e01) — 3/27/2023 @ 2:46 pmIt’s a joke and shows what Orwell understood that if you can make someone believe an obvious lie, you can make them believe anything. And they’ll love Big Brother.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 3/27/2023 @ 6:20 pm“who reached puberty as males but have since decided to live as women”
How do you live as a woman? Playing dress up is not living as a woman. Multilating yourself is not living as a woman. Competing against women does not make you a woman. Taking hormones can make you more feminine but does not make you a woman. I agree with JVW that everyone should be treated with dignity and understanding….and that individuals have a right to carve out their life as they see fit. But there’s more than a certain sadness about all this. I fear our psychologist and psychiatrist community is perpetrating a great fraud on vulnerable people. Perhaps I just don’t get it and should shut up. I don’t wish this confusion upon anyone….
AJ_Liberty (f3059a) — 3/27/2023 @ 6:31 pmMeanwhile, a transgender “woman” shoots up a Christian school.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 3/27/2023 @ 6:43 pmKevin,
the evil creature was a woman who was told she could pretend to be a man. And encouraging that mental illness has obvious consequences.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 3/27/2023 @ 7:06 pmHow do you live as a woman? Playing dress up is not living as a woman.
Sure it is. We say of George Sand that she lived as a man because she choose to dress as a male, smoke in public, and frequent male establishments that were otherwise off-limits to women. That didn’t make George Sand a man, but it did mean that she lived as one. Same thing for Billy Tipton, the jazz musician. She chose to live as a man and kept the ruse up until her death.
JVW (f3f684) — 3/27/2023 @ 7:10 pmThis is how most problems get solved in our society with a gun. Looks like the transsexuals are joining the rest of society and starting to shoot.
asset (3d2215) — 3/27/2023 @ 7:31 pmRob,
I was working on the assumption that the MSM would never misgender.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 3/27/2023 @ 7:44 pmI look forward to ESPN celebrating Rachel Dolezal during Black History Month.
JF (1cddcf) — 3/27/2023 @ 7:56 pmJVW wrote:
We Kentuckians like to do radical things like tell the unvarnished truth, and Mrs Barker has told the unvarnished truth. Alas! Though she swam for my alma mater, she’s actually from Gallatin, Tennessee. 🙁
She has previously noted that Will Thomas was a physically intact male at the time she last saw him in the locker room. And I have previously noted that not only were his times at the Zippy Invitational meet, in which his story first became widely known, not only utterly destroyed the women’s times, but that his time would have placed him 15th out of 26th among the men’s times in the 500 meter freestyle, while the last place men’s finisher’s time was still seven seconds faster than the first real woman’s time in the same event.
The libertarian, but not Libertarian, Dana (b10ece) — 3/28/2023 @ 6:56 amMr Liberty wrote:
We have two ‘kinds’ of transsexuals: those who attempt to live reasonably quietly, to try to actually fit in as the ‘gender’ they claim to be, and then we have the outrageous, like Dylan Mulvaney and his “Days of Girlhood,” which are such parodies of being a girl that I can’t help but think that it’s all a sham, to mock ‘transgenderism.’ Sadly, the dummkopf from Delaware agreed to be interviewed by Mr Mulvaney, so his support for ‘transgenderism’ isn’t linked to those genuinely trying to fit in, but the parodies.
When it comes to Will Thomas, I have to ask: if someone was deliberately trying to trash the idea of transgenderism, what would he do differently? By using his biologically male advantage to destroy female swimmers in the pool, is he not demonstrating for all to see that ‘transgender women’ are very different from real women?
If someone claims to be ‘transgender,’ as far as I am concerned, that’s his own business, and none of mine. But when they demand, and use the force of law to enforce it, that other people must go along with their assumed names and gender, they have then made it other people’s business.
The libertarian, but not Libertarian, Dana (b10ece) — 3/28/2023 @ 7:14 amMr M wrote:
The credentialed media were confused, because Miss Hale had apparently been using the masculine pronouns only recently, so the major outlets went through all sorts of contortions in their reports to avoid all pronouns and honorifics so as not to ‘misgender’ her. They referred to “the shooter” or “the assailant” or “the suspect” in places that normal prose would have used pronouns, because while they knew she was born female, the references to her claiming to be male were sparse, and the media just weren’t certain.
The libertarian, but not Libertarian, Dana (b10ece) — 3/28/2023 @ 7:19 amI have an uncle who, instead of accepting a football scholarship, got a position on a semi-pro team and paid for his college education that way.
I have a jaundiced view of the NCAA generally, but the real criminals are the colleges and universities who exploit these kids at the personal level, and the kids can do very little about it.
nk (377765) — 3/28/2023 @ 10:33 amLetting biological males compete against women is way beyond dignity and understanding. It strips the women athletes of dignity and shows no understanding of biological differences. We somehow went from dignity and understanding to promoting them above everyone else.
steveg (8a29e6) — 3/28/2023 @ 12:08 pmLetting biological males compete against women is way beyond dignity and understanding. It strips the women athletes of dignity and shows no understanding of biological differences. We somehow went from dignity and understanding to promoting them above everyone else.
God forbid we misgender someone while the child bodies left by there crime are still warm.
Another interesting take was a (D) head politician who claimed none of the Christian School parents of the dead children wanted thoughts or prayers. I get it that of course the parents might want gun control, but now isn’t the time to gild the lily with “no thoughts or prayers” wanted
steveg (8a29e6) — 3/28/2023 @ 12:13 pmcolleges and universities who exploit these kids at the personal level, and the kids can do very little about it.
Perhaps college athletes should unionize like grad students did.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 3/28/2023 @ 12:15 pmOne of the “crimes” of the Federal judge who was attacked at Stanford was that he refused to order trial participants to use the defendant’s desired pronouns.
Kevin M (1ea396) — 3/28/2023 @ 12:17 pm@16 So hailie deegan and katie hettinger shouldn’t be allowed to compete against men?
asset (1fad15) — 3/28/2023 @ 1:40 pmMichael Cohen covered up his payment to Stormy Daniels all on his own. What Donald Trump did was allow him to convert it into a loan (also illegal for Cohen) He just covered up why he was paying him.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 3/28/2023 @ 3:01 pm