In less enlightened ages than our own, this sort of thing was taken for granted: boys should compete in boys’ sporting events and girls in those set aside for girls. No one thought about boys playing girls’ sports at all, because no boy would have even wanted to do so, but everyone knew that a boy of only average ability would dominate girls’ sports, because of natural physical differences. All this has not exactly been forgotten nowadays; even worse, it has been denounced as “transphobic bigotry.” Everyone today is smarter and wiser than our forbears. We know girls are boys and boys are girls, and boys pretending to be girls and setting women’s sporting records are to be celebrated. Except, that is, in Iowa.
Iowa’s Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds on Thursday signed into law a bill that forbids biological males from playing girls’ sports. Even if some burly fellow insists that he is really a girl, he has to play on the boys’ teams if he is going to play at all. Nowadays, we have to pass laws in order to reassert the truth of what everyone knows, no matter what they may insist to the contrary, and to beat back the fantasies and wishful thinking that dominate the popular culture. Even worse, the Iowa law is certain to be controversial. Those who cling to their woke fantasies won’t give them up without a fight.
According to the Post Millennial, “the law requires athletics programs to be men’s, women’s, or co-ed, and to tailor participation accordingly, based on the sex designated on a person’s birth certificate. This applies at all educational organizations, from elementary school through college.” Schools that get sued will get free legal representation, as will students who might get caught up in the challenges to the new law that are certain to come.
Reynolds positioned the new law as a women’s rights issue, which it is. She was “surrounded by Iowa women’s athletes at the signing, who spoke about how important it is that ‘no girl is sidelined in their own sport.’” Indeed.
As she signed the new law, Reynolds remarked: “Our state has an impressive legacy of advancing women’s equality. As I was first female governor, this aspect of our state’s character fills me with gratitude and pride….The success of these and so many other women demonstrates what I consider a fundamental principle: Great things happen when women have access to the fair and equal playing field they deserve.”
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This is certain to enrage the authoritarian Left, which demands absolute conformity to its beliefs, no matter how absurd they are, and harshly punishes those who dare to step out of line. The most notorious example of this nowadays is the fact that everyone who sees transgender UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas smashing records that were set by human beings who were actually born female is supposed to applaud happily and exclaim, “You go, girl!” Those whose applause is less than enthusiastic face personal and professional ruin as “transphobic” bigots who have no place in our modern, diverse, multicultural paradise. Those are the rules, and everyone knows them.
But as in all totalitarian dystopias, much of the applause and support is less than wholehearted, motivated by fear of the consequences of dissent. One UPenn swimmer, who is remaining anonymous for obvious reasons, revealed Thursday that “pretty much everyone individually has spoken to our coaches about not liking this….I think secretly everyone just knows it’s the wrong thing to do. When the whole team is together, we have to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, go Lia, that’s great, you’re amazing.’ It’s very fake.”
Yes. The Iowa law is a move back from the fake to the real. Reynolds said of the new law that “nothing could be more straightforward and common sense. No student will be prevented from playing a sport that matches his or her biological sex, or sport designated as coed. As a woman, a mother of three daughters, and now a grandmother of three young girls. It worries me that this bill is needed at all. It’s hard to imagine how anyone who cares about the rights of women and girls could support anything less.”
It may be hard to imagine, but the Left is nothing if not predictable. Cue the howls of rage in Iowa.
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