It’s said that love is blind. So perhaps National Public Radio’s (NPR) love affair with the “transgender” agenda explains why, in its name, the station has cast principle and diligence to the winds.
First there was the recent NPR puff piece on MUSS (Made-up Sexual Status, aka “transgender”) firearms owners in which the outlet, departing from its gun-control dogma, kindly called the packin’-heat sexual devolutionaries the “gun curious.” Now NPR has been embarrassed because, in its zeal to support the cause of MUSS men in women’s sports, it claimed there was “limited scientific evidence” that such males have a “physical advantage” over females. The station later issued a correction, but it turned out to be a distinction without a difference.
This story has been reported — and, in fairness, somewhat misreported — by conservative media. National Review, for example, wrote Saturday that “NPR Claims ‘Limited Scientific Evidence’ Men Have ‘Physical Advantage’ over Women in Sports.” This could be misconstrued because, especially in the 1990s and into the early 2000s, there actually was a feminist claim that normal men (i.e., those not taking testosterone inhibitors and female hormones, etc.) didn’t necessarily have an athletic advantage over women.
NPR’s contention, in contrast, is that there’s limited scientific evidence that MUSS men — who may be somewhat demasculinized owing to feminizing interventions such as the above — have an advantage. The station is wrong, but it’s important to not be wrong about what it’s wrong about.
NPR had originally written, in a March 24 tweet, that the “international governing body for track and field will ban trans women athletes from elite women’s competitions, citing a priority for fairness over inclusion despite limited scientific evidence of physical advantage.”
The outlet then issued the following Sunday “correction”:
And what is the point? The issue is that since MUSS men generally have higher testosterone levels than women do, and since this does “impact athletic performance,” there is “scientific evidence of physical advantage.”
As for there being “limited scientific research involving elite trans athletes,” well, of course. The MUSS agenda is one of those “last Thursday” innovations. Are we supposed to immediately have chapter-and-verse research on every new fancy disgorged by leftist minds and hearts?
Regardless, NPR’s analysis reflects a comic-book grasp of sex differences; that is to say, the latter go beyond muscle mass, and current testosterone levels don’t tell the whole tale.
I won’t offer a complete rundown here (I’ve written about this before), but men also have performance-enhancing bone-structure and oxygen-usage advantages relative to women. Moreover, boys surpass girls athletically even during prepubescence, when, from the moment kids are old enough to compete, the sexes have identical hormonal profiles.
Yet none of this even need be debated. For this issue brings to mind the saying, “Moral issues are always complex matters — for people who have no principles.” The principle here is simple: Rules are made to be followed. If a rule itself is flawed, then alter or eliminate it; making no effort to do so, however, is tacit admission of its necessity.
In the case in question here, the rule is that women’s sports are for women. If this rule is somehow outdated and irrelevant, nix it and have everyone compete together. But the MUSS advocates don’t suggest this; they just want a special dispensation from the rule for a pseudo-elite favored group after tacitly confessing the rule’s validity.
This is much like allowing a 175-pound wrestler to compete in the 134-pound category because he identifies as being 132 pounds. This wouldn’t be tolerated, even if he weren’t very good and would only finish eighth in a 134-pound tournament. After all, the guy who’d then finish ninth has a right to not be supplanted by someone who isn’t even supposed to be there.
As for NPR, it’s definitely trying to compete way above its intellectual weight class. Implying that the World Athletics Council is unjust, it writes that even “without strong evidence of an advantage, the council has scrutinized the performance of athletes such as South African runner Caster Semenya, the world’s fastest woman in the 800 meters. Semenya, who was raised female and is legally female, was born with XY chromosomes and has a naturally high testosterone level.”
Here’s what NPR doesn’t say (and may not know): Along with a male genotype, Semenya also “has no womb or ovaries, but instead has internal testes,” related The Sun in 2019. In other words, Semenya is clearly a very unfortunate male who experienced abnormal intrauterine development; it’s a classic case of hermaphroditism.
Now, while there’s no such thing, normally sexual devolutionaries would label Semenya “intersex.” Yet they now call Semenya a “woman” because that’s how the runner “identifies” — and doing so aligns with the MUSS agenda.
Yet there’s another issue here. Even if we were to accept NPR’s “limited scientific research” argument and all its MUSS suppositions, what’s being asserted is, translated:
“We have limited evidence that the given proposal could be a problem … so let’s completely rearrange society based on the new ideology prescribing it.”
This is a bit like saying, “We have limited evidence that this new drug could be bad for your kid … so let’s give it to him, instead of aspirin, when he has a headache.” Obviously, when the jury is out on some innovation’s validity or possible danger, it’s prudent to stick with the status quo.
But that’s a problem inherent in today’s leftism, which could be conceptualized as “changism.” And those supporting it, do note: “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
