Back in the good ‘ole days of 2015, the fight over allowing transgender women to use the women’s bathroom in Charlotte, North Carolina, took center stage in the national political debate. At the time, only a Chicken Little would suggest that mixing gender preference and sexual identity could lead to harmful outcomes. In an article titled, “‘Transgender’ Needs A Legal Definition Right Now or Women Will Get Hurt,” David Marcus pointed out that trans advocates:

… insisted that the idea anyone would use the law to dress as a woman and invade women’s private spaces [was] a myth. [But that November] Richard Rodriguez was arrested for dressing as a woman and peeking in stalls in the women’s room at Virginia’s Potomac Mills Mall … [Further, they claimed that] Charlotte’s law was never intended to allow someone like Rodriguez to put on a dress and enter women’s facilities.[1]

David Marcus’s fear that women would get hurt was far more than a myth. It was an understatement. Today, transgender women are invading more than women’s restrooms.

Beyond the Bathroom

The move from spying on girls in the ladies’ room to the cases of sexual assault in schools we saw highlighted in last November’s Virginia Governor’s race is, by definition, an escalating threat to women.[2] But the ramifications of transgender ideology are even more far-reaching than that.

• Last summer, New Zealand’s Laurel Hubbard made history as the first transgender woman to compete in Olympic weightlifting.[3]
• In Australia, 6’2”, 220-pound Hannah Mouncey overpowered other women in both Australian rules football and on the national handball team.[4]
• Caitlyn Jenner not only graced the cover of Vanity Fair magazine in seductive lingerie but was also named Glamour magazine’s “Woman of the Year” in 2015.
• In October 2021, Rachel Levine became the first woman ever promoted to the rank of four-star admiral in the U. S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.[5]

And what about women’s collegiate swimming? Traditionally, swimmers give us electrifying moments where they break records by tenths or even hundredths of a second. But recently, the University of Pennsylvania’s transgender swimmer, Lia Thomas, won the 200-meter freestyle by nearly 8 seconds, the 500-meter by over 12 seconds, and the 1,650-meter freestyle by 38 seconds. Two of those were the best times in the nation.[6]

But the reaction to Lia’s victories hasn’t been electrifying at all. Her teammates have noted that:

The crowd is unusually silent when Thomas crosses the finish line, cheering for the second-place finisher instead … the team feels obligated to pretend they are happy for Thomas when they really feel demoralized and frustrated.[7]

Women Strike Back

For all their successes, these “women” don’t seem to be getting much love from their fellow females. In fact, there has been a backlash against every one of them. And the backlash has been led by women. Take Rose McGowan, for instance, who:

launched a blistering attack on the world’s most famous trans woman – former Olympic athlete Caitlyn Jenner … “You’re a woman now? Well, [expletive deleted] learn that we have had a VERY different experience than your life of male privilege,” McGowan said in a Facebook post she later deleted after facing accusations of transphobia. “Being a woman comes with a lot of baggage. The weight of unequal history. You’d do well to learn it. You’d do well to wake up. Woman of the year? Not by a long [expletive deleted] shot.”[8]

Suddenly, feminism and transgenderism – both darlings of Leftist ideology – have created a new aphorism as it applies to the Patriarchy: “The enemy of my enemy … is my enemy.”

The snake, it seems, is eating its own tail.

Reality Bites

Behind Rose McGowan’s tirade is the tacit admission that transgender women are actually men. It’s the same reality that drove Cynthia Millen, a three-decade USA Swimming official, to resign her position in the wake of Lia Thomas’s record-setting achievements:

Everything fair about swimming is being destroyed … The fact is that swimming is a sport in which bodies compete against bodies. Identities do not compete against identities … Men are different from women, men swimmers are different from women, and they will always be faster than women … While Lia Thomas is a child of God, he is a biological male who is competing against women and no matter how much testosterone suppression drugs he takes, he will always be a biological male and have the advantage [of having a] larger lung capacity, larger heart, greater circulation, a bigger skeleton, and less fat … I can no longer participate in a sport that allows biological men to compete against women.[9]

Don’t miss Cynthia Millen’s words: “Lia Thomas is a child of God.” Therein lies the transcendent reality in which the solution to all this mayhem must be grounded. Lia is a human being made in the image of God. For that, she deserves our love and respect. But that doesn’t oblige us to patronize her delusion. The stakes are too high for that.

The ascendancy of transgender ideology is harming women in more ways than even its critics could have imagined. But it is doing more than that. It’s a torpedo aimed at the foundations of a stable, healthy society. Whether it’s in the pool, on the playing field, in the boardroom, or in the sanctuary, denying reality is always destructive to those who practice it.

________

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This article first appeared on the Salvo blog on February 3, 2022

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NOTES

[1] David Marcus, “‘Transgender’ Needs a Legal Definition Right Now or Women Will Get Hurt,” The Federalist, available at: https://bit.ly/359Cgot

[2] Kaylee McGhee White, “Loudoun County Schools Covered Up Rape, Prosecuted a Concerned Father to Protect Transgender Agenda,” Washington Examiner, available at: https://washex.am/3nDNesz

[3] James Ellingworth & Sally Ho, “Transgender Weightlifter Hubbard Makes History at Olympics,” AP News, available at: https://bit.ly/32irkUv

[4] Warner Todd Huston, “Aussie Trans Athlete Hannah Mouncey Towers Above Opponents,” Breitbart News, available at: https://bit.ly/32gYy6w

[5] Matt Lavietes, “Rachel Levine Becomes Nation’s First Transgender Four-Star Admiral,” NBC News, available at: https://nbcnews.to/3fHjZRc

[6] Charmaine Patterson, “Swimmer Lia Thomas, Who is Transgender, Continues to Shatter Women’s Records,” People, available at: https://bit.ly/3FOtSr8

[7] “The Week,” National Review, December 27, 2021, p. 10.

[8] Jill Stark, “Call Yourself a Woman? Feminists Take on Trans Community in Bitter Debate,” The Sydney Morning Herald, available at: https://bit.ly/3AC1WG5

[9] Yaron Steinbuch, “Transgender Swimmer Lia Thomas is ‘Destroying’ Sport, Official Says,” New York Post, available at: https://bit.ly/35gmPef