UPenn Eats Crow: Women’s Sports Saved

The great Stephen Kruiser just wrote a column about the myths of “transgenderism” (previously called more accurately gender dysphoria), where he labeled his pronouns as “Enough” and “Already." I’ve written numerous times that supporting the myth that men can be women is tantamount to idol worship. It seems that society is now catching up to the common sense of a comic and a rabbi. Will Thomas must be fuming (and the courageous Riley Gaines is celebrating). 

U.S. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced in a Tuesday statement that the University of Pennsylvania is settling its Title IX lawsuit and has “agreed both to apologize for its past Title IX violations and to ensure that women’s sports are protected at the University for future generations of female athletes." This is glorious (and about time) on every level, and UPenn is being forced to eat crow and return to the common sense of gender identification through six steps as part of the settlement.

1. UPenn will restore all female swimming records and titles to actual women that "were misappropriated by male athletes allowed to compete in female categories." Sorry, Will, you can call yourself Lia all day and night, but your fraudulent behavior is being deleted from the record books.
2. UPenn will issue a public statement committing to honor Title IX standards and forbidding men from competing in women’s athletics or being in their locker rooms. That's right, Will, no more slinging your junk in front of actual women.
3. UPenn “will adopt biology-based definitions of male and female consistent with President Trump’s Executive Orders 'Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism' and 'Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.'" Will, you lose while President Trump just keeps winning.
4. UPenn will post this statement prominently on its website and on all women’s athletics websites. Hey Penn, how does that crow taste?
5. UPenn will “rescind any guidance which violated Title IX," including removing or revising all internal and public documents. That’s right, no more grooming our kids on the Penn campus.
6. “UPenn will send a personalized letter of apology to each impacted female swimmer.” And no autopen signing. These letters aren’t nearly enough for the hell these female athletes went through. Penn should be reimbursing them their tuition money as well as extra for the trauma the school inflicted on these young women.

If I sound overly jubilant, it’s because I am. This nonsense of acting like there is no physical difference between a biological male who wants to succeed in women’s athletics and actual women has always been ludicrous on every level. It has been destroying the lives of every real female athlete who worked so hard to achieve excellence and this has been a stain on athletics since this craziness started being accepted (maybe the new nickname for President Trump should be “The Stain Remover”).

I have nothing but compassion for anyone who is or has legitimately experienced gender dysphoria, and I fully support any adult who consciously chooses to change their lifestyle and physical body so that it is in harmony with their inner sense of self. It must be an excessively hard path, and I can accept any adult who makes that choice. But grooming children whose brains aren’t even fully developed (which takes about 27 years) for body mutilation is truly a crime against humanity. And to destroy a young woman’s dreams of being a world-class athlete, dreams she worked for years and thousands of hours to achieve, is despicable. 

Few people know the dedication and sacrifice it takes for an athlete to rise to the level of a NCAA Division 1 or professional athlete. Coach Nort Thornton, the great swimming and diving coach at the University of California, Berkeley for over 30 years and who won multiple national championships, had a great teaching approach for aspiring collegiate athletes regarding NCAA Division 1 athletics (I know this, because I was one of those athletes he said it to). “In college," he said, “there is academics, there is athletics, and there is a social life. You can only do two of them well.” To be a top athlete, some other aspect of your life must get lost. It has to because of the time and devotion needed to reach that level of excellence. Each of those UPenn female swimmers spent thousands of hours to become a top female swimmer.

But not so for Will Thomas, or any male athlete competing only against women. Thomas was a mediocre men’s swimmer. But just by declaring himself a woman and calling himself Lia, he was suddenly the best in the world and the holder of multiple swimming records.

All of that has now been taken away from him, thanks to the common sense of President Trump.

This is a victory for all athletes and all human beings. It is a sign that we are getting out of the gender dysphoria mess that our society has been steeped in. It is a hopeful signal that the fantasy that men can be women just by saying so, and as such, can compete against real women, is a delusion that will no longer be accepted.

It is the revival of the dreams of thousands of little girls who are working with all their hearts and souls to become top athletes. May each of their dreams come true.

And congratulations to Riley Gaines, who has worked so tirelessly to return women’s sports to women.

(This column was inspired by the diligent work of Rich Perelman of The Sports Examiner, the leading authority on Olympic Sports.) 

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