It takes a fair bit of boldness to speak plainly about the transgender issue these days—it's a political climate where you can lose your job, your career, your friends, your family, everything.

So Cynthia Millen deserves a fair bit of commendation here:

Cynthia Millen has officiated at USA Swimming events for 30 years, but she hung up her whistle last week in protest over Penn transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, and she hopes others will follow her lead.

Ms. Millen said she notified USA Swimming of her decision in a Dec. 17 letter, saying she realized as she packed for the US Paralympics Swimming National Championships in Greensboro, North Carolina, that "I can't do this, I can't support this." She pulled out of the event.

"I told my fellow officials that I can no longer participate in a sport which allows biological men to compete against women. Everything fair about swimming is being destroyed," she said in her letter, which she shared with The Washington Times.

Millen spoke even more plainly on Fox News this week:

"Bodies swim against bodies. Gender identities don't swim," she said. "Lia is a man who is swimming against women."

The former swimming official outlined the relevant biological differences between male and female swimmers, noting that men swim "8 to 12 percent faster than women."

They also have a greater lung capacity, heart, circulatory system and skeleton, she said.

Yup.

Note that Cynthia Millen's arguments here are based mostly in fact—the conclusions she has come to are objective ones. Men are, indeed, faster than women; their biology naturally and incontrovertibly orders them toward more impressive physical and athletic feats.

Everyone knows this; doctors know this, commentators know this, most assuredly the folks who run USA Swimming know this.

How we got here is a complex and complicated story. But the end result is clear: Female athletes are being systematically sidelined and slighted by the organizations meant to protect the integrity of their sports.