The Battle over Women’s Sports: What Is a Woman?

The Battle over Women’s Sports (full series)
Modern History of Women’s Sport | What Is a Woman?
Betrayal | What’s Next?

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What Is a Woman?

Let’s pause for a moment. While reading this history, what do you envision as a woman? What is your definition of a woman? Do you even have to think about it? When you picture women’s sports, do you see full-grown, burly men with long hair and painted fingernails? Of course not. We all instinctively know what a woman is. It is only by incessant propaganda and heavy-handed institutional policies that this subject is even remotely controversial. But even with all that, the truth remains self-evident.

Two intersex competitors failed gender tests yet were allowed to compete at the Paris Olympics women’s boxing event. However, these tests show how noticeable the differences between men and women are. I mean, is compulsory gender testing even needed in men’s sports? Do we need gender tests to keep out a flood of women from impersonating men and taking over men’s sports? Does the NFL have any such tests? Why do we only need these tests in women’s sports? In today’s climate, if the sexes are truly equal in every way, as modern feminists claim, why is there no push for more gender testing in both female and male sports? We all know why.

Gender testing in men’s sports is not commonly practiced, if at all. It seems gender verification is almost exclusively relegated to women’s sports for obvious reasons.

Here’s a sport where there’s no need to determine if the competing men are secretly women cosplaying. Powerlifting. For comparison, men’s vs women’s all-time powerlifting records:

Male Powerlifting Records:

• Squat: 1,080 lbs (490 kg) by Nathan Baptist (2023, Super Heavyweight)
• Bench Press: 782.6 lbs (355 kg) by Jimmy Kolb (2023, Single Ply)
• Deadlift: 1,102.3 lbs (500 kg) by Hafthor Björnsson (2020, Strongman event)

Female Powerlifting Records:

• Squat: 705.4 lbs (320 kg) by April Mathis (2018, Super Heavyweight)
• Bench Press: 600 lbs (272.2 kg) by Becca Swanson (2005, Equipped)
• Deadlift: 636 lbs (288.3 kg) by Tamara Walcott (2022)

The differences between male and female powerlifting records are painfully obvious. There should be no debate over allowing transgender women (biological males) to compete in women’s powerlifting. The reality is that men, on average, are physically stronger than women, and no amount of “hormone therapy” can change that. For example, a 2021 study published by the British Journal of Medicine found that transgender women (biological males) maintained an athletic advantage over biological women even after a year of hormone therapy. But are studies even needed to prove this? What happened to common sense and just acknowledging that biological sex can bring advantages and disadvantages depending on the sport?

Or look at male vs. female gymnastics. Female gymnastics emphasize grace, power, and balance, with routines highlighting flexibility and elegance. In contrast, male gymnastics focuses more on upper body strength, force, and precision, with events like rings and parallel bars emphasizing raw power. The two divisions of gymnastics are structured around the biological strengths of the sexes and which traits gymnastics fans want to see each sex excel at. A trans man (biological female) would have a tough time, if not impossible, to make it on a men’s elite-level gymnastics team. Thus, we don’t need to gender-test competitors in men’s sports.

Opportunity

It was the middle-school girls’ basketball tryouts, and nearly every girl in my class was participating. Basketball was the “cool” sport, and it was the first time my small Christian school had a real coach willing to lead a girls’ team. We had a boys’ basketball team but nothing for the girls until that year.

I didn’t make the team. There would be no Caitlin Clark story for Kali. I was okay at dribbling, but when the coach asked me to do 10 layups for the tryout, I didn’t even know what a layup was. I was one of two girls who didn’t make the cut. I felt a bit down, but like most middle school kids, I quickly moved on to other interests like dance and music.

You may have stories from your own middle or high school years. Were you the star athlete with shelves full of plastic trophies, the steady player who always made the team, or were you like me—someone who tried and didn’t quite make it? Star athlete or not, the reality is that most of us who went to school in the 1970s and beyond had access to team sports, regardless of sex. And that’s the important thing for most kids: the opportunity. Because of the work of past generations, girls have the opportunity in America today to have their own thing and place to shine. However, that opportunity today is under threat, and if we don’t stop the current trends, we may lose women’s sports for future generations.

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In the next installment, the organizations that claim to protect and preserve women’s sports have been betraying them.

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-battle-over-womens-sports-part-2/