“Sorry, you don’t get a spot in the finals of the girls’ race, young lady — the boy gets that.” Of course, it wasn’t quite put that way in the recent 2016 Alaska State Track Championships. Instead, Nattaphon Wangyot, a Thai-born — and boy-born — runner, is referred to with feminine pronouns by writers who talk about how wonderful it is that he’s being “true to himself.” But the objective reality remains the same: Last Friday, a boy competed with girls and took spots that otherwise would have gone to females.
Welcome to the Brave New World of bold faux girls.
According to the Alaska Dispatch News (ADN), Wangyot’s participation marks the first time in Alaska’s history that a made-up-sex-status (MUSS) individual — euphemistically known as “transgender” — competed individually for a high-school state championship. It certainly won’t be the last, though, as it already had great precedent.
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For example, Dr. Richard Raskind, the famous “transsexual” who adopted the name Renée Richards, was granted the right to compete in women’s tennis and won the 1979 35-and-over U.S. Open women’s tennis title at age 45. “Lana Lawless,” also a man claiming to be a woman, was allowed to participate in the Women’s World Long Drive Championship (golf) — and won the 2008 event at age 55. And MUSS “mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter Fallon Fox gave his female opponent a concussion and a broken eye socket in 2014,” reports Lifesite News. Talk about a War on Women.
And in Wangyot’s case, some disgruntled parents and female high-school runners are launching some (lukewarm) salvos in response. As Lifesite also tells us:
Saskia Harrison, a senior at Hutchison High School in Fairbanks … missed qualifying for the state finals due to Wangyot’s participation.
“I’m glad that this person is comfortable with who they are and they’re able to be happy in who they are, but I don’t think it’s competitively completely 100-percent fair,” she said.
The mother of a high school freshman, who was bumped out of the awards bracket by Wangyot, has spoken out. Jennifer Van Pelt commented on the original news story that “at our state track and field meet they award medals and a spot on the podium to the top 4. Allison [her daughter] placed 5th. We had no idea she was running against a male until after the race was over.”
And Eagle River junior Peyton Young, who won the Class 4A girls 3,200-meter race, is quoted by the ADN as saying, “I don’t know what’s politically correct to say, but in my opinion your gender is what you’re born with. It’s the DNA. Genetically a guy has more muscle mass than a girl, and if he’s racing against a girl, he may have an advantage.” That’s putting it mildly. As I’ve often pointed out, the mile record for 15-year-old boys is faster than the women’s world record. Not understanding the magnitude of the intersex performance gap makes policies allowing boys to compete with girls more likely.
Young is also wrong in a sense: We’re not born with “gender.” This term’s usage used to be almost exclusively confined to grammar (word categorizations) until the sexual revolutionaries co-opted it to facilitate their agenda. This is important to understand because the side that defines the vocabulary of a debate generally wins the debate. And here’s another point: The Obama administration has used Title IX — the unconstitutional federal legislation that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex — to push its “transgender” policies. Yet the very social scientists who advance the notion of human “gender” emphasize that “sex” and “gender” are not synonymous; they say that while “sex” is a biological classification,” “gender” is your perception of what you are. Thus, by definition, a law prohibiting only sex discrimination cannot be applied to “gender.”
For Wangyot’s part, he says he takes female hormones and other drugs that suppress testosterone production; apologists say this means he has no competitive advantage. And this increasingly is reflected in policy. As the ADN pointed out, “The NCAA and the International Olympic Committee both allow athletes to compete based on gender identification, provided that athletes who were born biologically male but identify as female are undergoing hormone replacement therapy.”
Now, sport is frivolity. The real problem with the MUSS agenda is the effect it has on the wider society, on people’s grasp of reality. Yet if we’re going to lobby for a policy, in things great or small, it should start with acknowledgment of reality. And is it really true that a male who takes female hormones no longer has any athletic advantage?
Boys are already exposed to high levels of testosterone during certain periods in the womb, and this profoundly affects development; in addition, it’s logical to assume that boys’ different chromosome configuration (XY) has effects on development apart from those induced by hormones. Regardless, the proof is in the pudding. Take a look at the youth track and field records found here. Note that the boys’ records in every age category, even eight-and-under, are better than the girls’ records. Now, question:
If even young boys who have never experienced adolescent testosterone exposure have an athletic advantage over their female age mates, how could a male who has already gone through adolescence (partially or in full) not have an advantage merely because he suddenly blocks that testosterone exposure?
It’s a wholly unscientific, illogical position. Yet it gets even worse. The Haines Borough School District policy allowing Wangyot’s participation in girls’ events states, “For the purposes of gender identification for interscholastic activities, the district will consider the gender identity based on the student’s consistent declaration of gender identity, their actions, attitude, dress and mannerisms.”
In other words, a fully testosterone-fueled, 18-year-old lad could compete with the girls if he simply declares he is one and “plays the part.” (And, ironically, officials can only determine if he plays the part sufficiently well by using stereotyping.)
There is, though, an irony here, given that some feminists are complaining about girls losing athletic opportunities to MUSSed up boys. Embracing discredited psychologist Dr. John Money’s “gender neutrality” theory, feminists claimed for decades that the sexes were the same except for the superficial physical differences and, therefore, if you raised them identically, they’d turn out the same. And so strident were they about this that disputing it and alluding to substantive sex differences would evoke the accusations “Chauvinist!” “Sexist!” The intersex biological distinction was essentially irrelevant, they averred, and must never be used to determine policy or what opportunities will be provided. Well, the feminists are now getting what they wanted: The biological distinction is being ignored.
The moral of this story? He who lives by the Equality card, dies by the Equality Card. And the Demon of Destructive Ideas, once unleashed, is never loyal to just one conjurer.
